A Country Mouse Writes

a country mouse goes to York

2010-10-15T06:55:00.000-07:00

We're just back from enjoying the hospitality of my brother and his family in Hull for the October week. Little R and I went off on a day trip to York to celebrate my 41st birthday. We had to visit Betty's, of course. Little R had hot chocolate and a butter bear biscuit and I had a fat rascal (a Betty's speciality) and a big silver pot of coffee. We know how to look after ourselves when we travel.
York is one of my favourite cities. In a previous job I went on several week-long building conservation training courses at King's Manor, below. Although it's a university building the public can use the cafeteria so I was able to bring Little R in to explore the courtyards. When I was on the courses (one per year: stone, timber and lead) we were given access to some truly amazing parts of medieval York, such as closed parts of the Minster, its stoneyards where the modern masons work and parts of Barley Hall that were being uncovered for the first time in hundreds of years. Now Barley Hall is a tourist attraction with lots of interactive stuff but when I was there it was a darkened time capsule, full of the dust and filth of the newly revealed ancient lath and plaster. I did realise though that I might have been overdoing the building talk with Little R when she casually ran her hand over an ashlar wall and commented, "Dressed stone." She's 5. I told my sister in law about this and she asked Little R what dressed stone meant. I was such a proud mummy when she gave a comprehensive explanation!
Before we left for Hull my good friend Anne gave me a really special present:

What a beautiful little book. She knows I love robins. It was published in 1953. So special to think that it has lasted all this time. I am really looking forward to reading it and using the handmade bookmark.

And have you noticed the background? Yes, it's the Attic 24 granny stripe blanket, finished at long last. I will try to get a photo of it spread out properly on a sunny day. It's 240 stitches wide and 110 rows long. Each row took me about 20 minutes to crochet (they were trebles) so that blooming blanket represents a sizeable chunk of my time. It is probably not a good idea to total it up. I do love it though and life's not all about efficiency after all.

I bought these red patent boots (Fly London) using birthday money from kind Granny Mouse. I have been wearing them all day and they are as soft as slippers plus they give me a much needed bit of extra height. I had bought a pair of browny/purpley patent ones in John Lewis and when I got home I checked Amazon and found the exact same ones in red for exactly half the price so needless to say I'll be returning the brown ones.

I also bought just one or two tiny things in the Cath Kidston shop in York. I was very restrained considering the level of happiness these purchases brought me. I bought a gadget case for my new camera and a magnetic memo board to display (certainly never actually use) on my fridge. I also bought a Cath Kidston bag for Little R. She carries it and I have the enjoyment of looking at her wearing it.

At last I have got round to posting a photo of the bloggy giveaway I won a few weeks ago from Andamento. I had taken photos of it at the time but had used my old camera which then got broken with the photos inside it. The giveaway was a notebook, pen, cute birdie post-its which I have already used all of, and a pencil tin. The pencil tin was packed full of the most delicious home made tablet - soft and fudgy, mmmm. I received another parcel recently from a fellow blogger, this time from Vintage Squirrel (below). I had used some more birthday money to buy one of her beautiful brooches.

Katie felts the wool by hand and she sent me some samples of wool colours and ribbons so I could choose exactly what I wanted. I'm really delighted with it. I won't be missed wearing this and my red patent boots. I've run out of birthday money now so it's back to frugality. I noticed a postcard in a book shop in Edinburgh last week which I was too cheap to buy. It was a 1940s style photo of an elegant woman's face smiling benignly with the caption, "Frugal is such an ugly word."

a country mouse goes to Edinburgh

2010-10-10T02:07:00.000-07:00

Another year, another birthday, another trip to Edinburgh!!!! Lynn and I had a great day out. It's a real adventure for me these days to go somewhere like Edinburgh and it's an odd experience for both of us to walk at an adult pace without stopping every few steps to be shown sticks and stones and getting our pockets stuffed with conkers and worse. We had lunch in a very strange little place, Forest Cafe, with a hairdresser next door called Snip and Sip (sip vodka, that is). We resisted the temptation for a quick shampoo and set and headed off down Victoria Street instead. Quite a dark photo, but it is quite a dark little street and the nights are fair drawin' in.

And what should we come upon, half way down this picturesque street, but K1 Knitting Yarns, a beautiful little knitting shop. I took this photo in landscape and rotated it in Picasa to portrait, hence the Diagon Alley quality which does actually suit Victoria Street. I was all set to go in but had to remind myself that my budget did not permit a wool spree, and certainly not at tourist prices rather than charity shop prices, so I reluctantly walked on after pressing my nose to the glass like a starving Victorian orphan at a baker's shop. We both had to be home for a reasonable hour (we're old) so after packing Lynn off back to the farm I wandered down to the train station to catch the six thirty back to Glasgow Queen Street. I've had several very special birthday presents already so my next post will be a big thank you to my kind, thoughtful and generous friends. Goodbye Edinburgh; see you again next year.

a country mouse is out to lunch

2010-09-27T02:20:00.000-07:00

It's the September weekend here, so Little R and Daddy Mouse are off school and work for Friday and Monday. Every day is a holiday for Countrymouse, of course, according to them. The skies are blue so we head off for a wander round the village. This is "our" chestnut tree, which we visit on every village walk. Behind it is what Little R calls Lion Hill for no reason I can discern. Maybe it's lie-on hill? She does like to lie on it and also for all of us to roll down it. Yes, we are completely under her thumb.

I have my new camera! Thank you everyone who left comments. Two of you suggested the latest Fujifilm Finepix and that's what I went for. I'm really pleased with it. It really is a point and click as it makes all the adjustments automatically. We went for a posh lunch at our local (amazing) restaurant midway through our walk and I did some surreptitious snapping of what we ate. This is a salad of organic Arran beets and leaves with poached egg. The beets were so delicious it was almost like eating a peach.

Then I had roast hake, ratte potatoes, baby gem and mangetout with a brown butter emulsion.
Followed by coffee and petit fours. So calorific but so totally worth it. We called it my birthday lunch, to go with my birthday camera, even though my birthday isn't for another couple of weeks. I can't believe it is a year since I posted about our birthday girls' night on Sauchiehall Street when we were singing Abba songs and eating chocolate cakes at 1am. What is that old saying about if you change nothing you will still be doing next year what you are doing this year? Pithier than that, I'm sure, but it's ringing in my ears nonetheless. I am very happy and I love what I'm doing, but there are definitely changes I'd like to make, along the lines of doing what I love more efficiently and effectively. That's the former civil servant speaking there.

As we waddled further on our walk this far-off fisherman gave me an excuse to use the 5x optical zoom on my new camera. There are salmon and trout in this river and we saw some breaking the surface as we walked along the banks. There's also a heron who lives there, and Little R likes to say hello to it as we go past on the school run. I never see it because it's usually at a stretch of river where the road bends and the bridge narrows so I have to keep my full attention on the oncoming traffic. The pros and cons of country living!

I was lucky enough to win a giveaway prize on one of my favourite blogs, Andamento. Unfortunately I photographed it all as I unwrapped it using my old camera, which was subsequently broken by Little R pressing too hard on the screen with her thumb (trying to hold it tight as silly mummy was instructing her to do). I will take some more pictures of the lovely notebook, post-it notes and pen but there is nothing now to show of the unbelievably delicious tablet other than the extra inch on my hips.

I'm still working away on the Attic 24 Granny Stripe blanket and am thinking of stopping now at a size which would fit a single bed lengthwise rather than keeping going and doing a full length one for a double bed. It's really enormous. That would mean I could be inspired (again) by Andamento and could use the rest of my wool to do the African Flowers pattern she's using for that beautiful blanket. I would limit myself to a cushion though. I'm a bit blanketed out and I'm not getting any younger you know.

a country mouse needs a new camera

2010-09-19T07:18:00.001-07:00

No photos at all today because Little R has broken my camera. Can any of you suggest a good replacement? It's my birthday next month so I'm allowed to call it an early birthday present. I can spend up to £100 and maybe a bit more if it is really worth it. I want one that I can pretty much just point and click if such a thing exists. What do you use?
love, countrymouse xx

a country mouse hits the beach

2010-09-05T06:38:00.000-07:00

Little R starts full time at school tomorrow. I am going to miss her so much. We went straight from school to Lunderston Bay, our closest bit of sandy beach, one afternoon last week for a picnic and a last burst of paddling before autumn closes in.
On the way back we stopped at the Esplanade for a quick cycle and Little R took this picture of our shadows on the water. All very poignant for me and just an average day full of fun, adventure and ice cream for her. I was feeling very despondent until a friend pointed out to me that I can still go to the beach on my own, with a book, whereupon I brightened up considerably.
We also stopped at Gourock on the way back and visited a wool shop I've been meaning to check out for some time, called Once A Sheep. I was very restrained and only bought some ladybird buttons and an ergonomic crochet hook (the Attic 24 granny stripe is quite RSI-inducing) but was impressed by the lovely yarns and all the gadgety knitting accoutrements. Almost next door was the most amazing vintage clothes shop, called Parma Vintage. It really stopped me in my tracks. It was like the best charity shop you have ever been in, times a hundred, full of print dresses, vanity cases, handbags, hats...Definitely one for a child-free return visit.
Have you any idea why a car would be covered in post-it notes? Nor have I but I had to get a photo of it.
It was my turn to host the craft night this week so I had lots of fun getting out the charity shop embroidered tray cloths and baking chocolate chip cookies and caramel shortcake. Feeling all domestic goddessy, I even copied this month's Country Homes and Interiors suggestion for making a vase from a squash. I am aware that I need to get a life.
This was the first time I've ever made caramel shortcake and it will be the last. The recipe said to mix flour, coconut and melted butter for the base and to "press firmly" when pouring it into the baking tray, so I did. I added the caramel and chocolate with a generous hand to make up for it.
Finally, I'm still avidly watching The Great British Bake Off and still backing Miranda, although the smart money is on the skinny guy who lost ten stones. Really though, I'm lost in admiration for all of them. I wouldn't like to hear Mary's opinion of my efforts.

a country mouse hides her husband

2010-08-19T06:40:00.000-07:00

No photos this week. Instead, I'm venturing into new realms of modern technology with internet links.

I've been watching this every day this week:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKsVSBhSwJg

Now, here's the story behind it. This young guy, Antoine Dodson, heard his sister scream in the next room and found her being attacked by someone who had climbed in her window. He bravely fought the attacker off and raged at him via the TV cameras (the family had called the news media when they felt the police were not doing anything to catch the attacker). AutoTune the News, 2 brothers who can do computer-y music-y stuff, put his interview to music and posted it on You Tube. Keep watching for the orchestra bit. You can also see the original interview, before it was edited into the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZKXAFqdlC4 Loads of people have since posted their own cover versions of the Bed Intruder song on YouTube, and it's making some money for Antoine and his sister on iTunes.
I think it is wonderful. Antoine is so cool, the song is just brilliant and the family were so right to take matters into their own hands. I bet any money the would-be rapist will be caught rather soon as a result.
My second obsession this week is The Great British Bake Off. OMG it's almost too much to ask from a TV programme - it's on for ages, it's on BBC so no adverts, it has lots and lots of unbelievably delicious cake in it AND IT HAS LADY MARY BERRY. Here is the link to watch episode 1 again on BBC iPlayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00thy5q/The_Great_British_Bake_Off_Episode_1/
My favourite is Miranda, for her triple layer brownie and meringue cake with raspberry cream. She's terribly terribly posh but wow can she bake a cake. They are in Scotland for the next episode. Run n tell that, countrymouse.

a country mouse is nesting

2010-08-11T03:19:00.000-07:00

This is the carrot harvest, nurtured and frequently spot-tested by Little R. We had to think of a suitably wonderful use for these very special carrots so we made them into muffins, using a recipe from a book introduced to me by my sister-in-law the cupcake queen: Baking Magic by Kate Shirazi. It's the best baking book I've found, with lots of recipes for muffins and also good basic advice. These were carrot, orange, walnut and cinnamon muffins, minus the cinnamon because I couldn't find it.

We are just back from visiting my brother, sister in law and their little girl in Hull. We had a great time there, hitting the beach at Hornsea, seeing sharks at The Deep and having too many late nights drinking wine as if we did not have to get up the next morning with small children.
I've noticed in recent years that when I get back home after a period away I want to do some intensive nesting, cooking homemade food and ironing everything in sight. It's a reaction to too much eating out when we're away, really, and too much living out of a suitcase. I overdid it a bit yesterday though with the carrot muffins (much washing, chopping and grating), then making blackcurrant jam with the blackcurrants (above) gathered by Little R and Daddy Mouse from the garden, plus chicken pie (below). The overexposed white shape on the bottom right is half an onion. It was a nice easy pie to make - poach the chicken with parsley stalks, carrots (yes, from garden), onion, a bay leaf (from brother's garden) and peppercorns then make a roux and gradually add the reserved stock to make the white sauce. Ready made pastry, of course, then straight into the oven.
And here is my haul from Hull. They have a great Waitrose down there and I know it's tragic, but it's something I really look forward to when I visit. My brother bought these for me, kind boy. I especially love the sunshine yellow mugs. The blue silicone spoon has been in use already, making the blackcurrant jam. That would turn a wooden spoon purple but the silicone one is as good as new. Welcome to the space age, country mouse.

a country mouse gets hooky in attic 24

2010-07-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

I've been a follower of the famous Attic 24 blog for some time now and have finally given in to my wish to crochet a granny stripe blanket. I've been wanting to make a really big blanket for ages now, ever since Grandado Mouse swiped the one I made on holiday in Findhorn last year, and have just been waiting to find the right wool. This wool is Lucy's recommendation: Stylecraft Special DK. I'm on row 48 at the moment and am finding it hard to put it down. The colours are so vibrant and the pace at which it grows is very satisfying. It doesn't take much concentration so it's possible to watch lots of Sky Plus-ed Project Runways at the same time. Simple things make me happy!
I'm also being made very happy just now by these beautiful gerberas, brought by a thoughtful friend when she and her wee girl came over recently for a playdate. She also brought some caramel shortcake. I like visitors like that.
I have not yet posted about Little R's 5th birthday, which took place during my prolonged blogging dry spell. She had asked me to make a very particular cake and told me exactly what it should be like - a triple layer cake, lots of cream, one layer with blueberries, one layer with cherries and raspberries, thick chocolate icing and a princess on the top. And five candles. Under the thumb as I am, I duly delivered the goods, and here is the photographic evidence.
Now that my baby is 5 she will be going to primary school in August. I am putting a brave face on it but I know I am going to feel like my right arm has been cut off. I will miss her so much. I'm very glad now that I did blog some of the things we did together during those short pre-school years. The first hurdle is going to be dressing her in BROWN school uniform. I have bought most of it now and my goodness it has not been cheap. While stocking up on little blue polo shirts in Marks and Spencer this afternoon I comforted myself with the purchase of a measuring tape with roses on it and a Mrs Beeton book about making jam. Both were in the sale and so fell within my charity shop levels of price sensitivity. We have a lot of blackcurrants in the garden at the moment and my next project will be to make them into something yummy so I can feel smug when I look at jars of glowing jet black blackcurrant jelly instead of defeated, as I feel when I catch sight of the jars of gooseberry sludge. Maybe I should hide them behind the gerberas.

a country mouse gets sticky

2010-07-23T01:44:00.001-07:00

Some friends came round last night for cake, chat and crochet. We get together every couple of weeks to do this and having eaten some superlative cakes at other girls' houses I felt obliged to rustle something up for my turn at being the hostess. It was a great excuse to get out the charity shop embroidered linen and play tea parties, too. I made sticky toffee cake and here, as promised to the girls last night, is the recipe:

Oven 180deg, grease and line an 8" square cake tin. Chop 6oz stoned dates and gently heat in small pan with 6 floz boiling water and half tsp bicarb soda for about 5 mins, without boiling, until the dates are soft. Cream 3oz butter and 5oz caster sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in one beaten egg, half tsp vanilla essence and the date mixture. Fold in 6oz self raising flour using a metal spoon, mixing evenly. Pour into prepared tin and bake for 40-45 mins. Then make the best bit - toffee sauce. Heat 3oz light muscovado sugar, one and a half oz butter and 2tbsp single cream or milk in a saucepan and simmer gently, stirring, for about 2 mins. Remove cake from oven and prick all over with fork then pour hot toffee sauce evenly over the surface to sink in. Leave to cool then cut into squares. I'd say be generous with the toffee sauce quantities as the more the better, really.

The previous day, Little Granny, Little R and I visited Greenbank Gardens, using my newly acquired National Trust for Scotland membership. It's £5 a month and easily pays for itself with just one visit somewhere. We had a really lovely afternoon, kicking off with coffee and cake (of course) in the converted stone barn tea room then setting off for a wander round the grounds. We came upon this fountain, above, inside the walled gardens. The statue is called Foam. Fortunately for Foam, the sun soon came out. Little R had a rare tear, dipping her toes in the water, running in circles round the edge, crouching down and guddling for terrified goldfish and taking photos of the flowers with her all time favourite toy, her birthday present Kidizoom camera. All of this was done with Little Granny's hand firmly clamped on her arm lest she join Foam in the pool. I had a nice relaxing time sitting on a bench observing the fun from a safe distance.
We started with a forest walk around the grounds, led by Little R ("I'm an expert on nature, follow me"). Lots of amazingly tall trees and unusual specimens. We then spotted the walled garden but could not figure out how to get into it.
And then we found the way in - GASP. It was a physical shock to the senses to go from the forest to the manicured straight lines and curves of this garden. It looks a bit wonky in this photo, and I can see some bald patches on the lawn in this view, but once inside it was absolute perfection. Not normally my sort of thing in a garden, and certainly not in my own, but the grass was so lush and velvety that I took off my shoes for the sheer joy of walking on it. It was a memorable day, having gone from a rainy morning to a glorious afternoon and from a shadowed forest to a secret garden. Well worth the direct debit.
Finally, here is my attempt at gooseberry jam using the gooseberries from our garden. Having spent a hot afternoon topping and tailing 3kg of gooseberries I came out with 5 jars of gooseberry sauce. I didn't have any preserving sugar and thought that as gooseberries were high in pectin it would be ok to use ordinary sugar, but it wasn't. Oh well, we'll just have to eat it with ice cream instead. It's a hard life.

a country mouse goes to the farm

2010-07-12T08:54:00.000-07:00

Little R and I are just back from a lovely weekend at our friends Lynn and Annie's farm. We had an empty as their menfolk were in Norway, throwing snowballs in the blazing sunshine. It was so good to have lots of time simply to be together and talk properly, rather than the rushed catch-ups we usually make do with. We also managed a trip to Portobello beach where, hardy sons of Scotia that we are, we were thoroughly exfoliated by the wind-whipped sand as we ate our picnic. We then retired to the Beach House cafe, above, to eat cake.
Like many farmers, our friends are diversifying. Their latest venture may be to cold press, bottle and sell oil seed rape oil using the crop in the field above. Apparently cold pressed oil seed rape oil is incredibly high in omega oils 3,6 and 9 and, unlike extra virgin olive oil and other cold pressed oils, can actually be used for cooking as well as salads without losing its omega properties. I think I've got that right. Anyway, it sounds like pretty amazing stuff and I applaud their entrepreneurship. The photo below shows the farmhouse nestled amongst the fields and trees. It's such a peaceful place. If they could bottle the atmosphere they would make a million.
And here are their hens, who gave Little R and I a parting gift of six freshly laid eggs. Buck buck.
Some horsey people stable their horses on the farm and we were thrilled to meet this handsome specimen below. As we approached he lifted first one front knee and then the other. Sadly I didn't have so much as a polo mint for him. His grumpy old face says it all.

We also got to pet and feed carrots to Jimmy, a miniature shetland pony the size of a labrador, and a year-old pony. Hens, horses, dogs, cake, beaches. We did not want to leave.

It has been a very long time since I posted on this blog (life has been busy and complicated) and I hope not to leave such a long gap in the future. Apologies to anyone who has been checking for updates, and thank you for your patience.

a country mouse has a big day out

2010-05-11T08:51:00.000-07:00

It has been ages since I've found the time to update this blog so I've given myself a big kick up the bottom and am now going to tell you all about my lovely day out this weekend. I had not seen my dearest friend of 20 years' standing since October, yes October, so we organised that she'd leave her little ones with her mum and come over to the mouse hole for a sleepover. We parked at Shields Road Underground station and headed for the West End.

At this point I will confess that the first time I went on the London Underground I thought it would be just like the Glasgow clockwork orange, so called because it's orange and goes round and round a small circuit, and that if I just got on the first train that came I would eventually end up at Embankment. I really shouldn't be let out unsupervised.It became clear to my friend that I do not get out enough, supervised or otherwise, when I took a photograph of the wallpaper in our lunch venue, The Bothy in Ruthven Lane. That settled, we began easing ourselves into a zinfandel state of mind.
Ambling (shambling?) along Byres Road afterwards we came upon this fantastic shop, above, called Demijohn. They sell spirits and liqueurs and various exotic olive oils which are decanted into very covetable apothecary type bottles. We had a wee sample of black cherry liqueur (friend) and elderflower vodka (mouse) and I can tell you I won't be wasting my elderflowers on champagne this summer.
Tanks topped up, we continued our wanderings, heading up Great Western Road and along Otago Street then down this secret little lane to my favourite book shop, Voltaire and Rousseau. The yellow door opens into a different world.
This is what's inside. It's a secondhand bookshop and the grumpy, be-cardiganed owner just keeps buying up books and chucking them into ceiling-high piles. You can barely fit between them and it's been like this since I first came across the place at least 25 years ago. Also, there are several reeking calor gas fires and a big fat cat whose litter tray is kept right beside the desk where you pay. I spent £4.80 on The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster and Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel to add to my already overloaded bookcases. All I need to recreate the Voltaire and Rousseau ambiance in the mouse hole is a cardigan and a fag.
Then off we went again, further down the secret lane and round the corner to Tchai Ovna for a reviving cup of tea and a cake. My friend had carrot cake (she reckons it's healthy as it contains a vegetable) and I had a warm chocolate brownie and a tea named Mary Poppins, which was just as soothing as it sounds. My friend fell so in love with the cup and saucer her tea was served in that I bought it for her for a birthday present.
We went out for dinner that night too, to a fantastic restaurant in country mouse village. We both had the most outstanding galette with caramelised onions, loads of wild mushrooms and some goats cheese on top and then a kind of deconstructed rhubarb crumble with custard tart, served on a square slate. The restaurant building was a school for orphans in Victorian days. I wonder what they'd have made of us, sitting where their desks were and eating our puddings from the things they used to write on. Perhaps a hundred years from now the race of giant cockroaches which will inherit the earth post-apocalypse will wonder what we would think could we see them dining on rhubarb (it will certainly survive) from chi-chi i-Pads. Hmm, too much zinfandel?
The next day my well-watered friend set off to retrieve her children via the Balamory boat. We promised not to leave it EIGHT MONTHS before we get together again. All together now, Ba La Mo Ree...

a country mouse tries to be good

2010-03-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

I do try to be good, but I've always loved the thrill of skipping something that I should really be doing. I'm always looking for a partner in crime too and now I've found one: my daughter. She was only too happy to skip nursery on the first sunny day after the snow to head for the beach at Lunderston Bay. We giggled and guddled and just generally had a ball, then went to the cafe for juice and a biscuit. A golden day.Tea this evening was Sophie Dahl's chicken stew with fennel and green olives, which I have made many times before and written about on this blog. I made it in a spirit of solidarity with poor Sophie, who is being pilloried at the moment for daring to have a cooking show. I haven't actually seen the programme yet but I'm a big fan of her cookery book, Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights. The gripe seems to be oh she's a "big" model, she's not a chef, what does she know about food except for how to eat lots of it, and other such nastiness. Well, anyone who can dream up that chicken stew is a cook as far as I'm concerned. We had it with the homemade bread, below, inspired by the bread baking feature in Country Living this month.
Still on the subject of eating, the photo below shows the wonderful spread of homebaking made by my friend Sally to raise money for Shelter. The event was called Cake Time so there was a good turnout of cake-loving mums eager to do our bit for a good cause by scoffing everything on this table.

http://www.caketime.org.uk/downloads/shelter_CakeTime_BROCHURE.pdf

I was in the mood for more worthy charity-related deeds when I came across Kiva (www.kiva.org). What an amazing idea. You and other charitably inclined people lend a sum of money, at least $25 to "the working poor" of various struggling countries and they use it to fund the set up or expansion of their businesses. They pay it back every month and then once you have your money back (default rate is something unbelievably tiny) you can either have it paid back to your bank account or re-lend it to another entrepreneur. You choose your entrepreneur from a really detailed list so you can choose something that is meaningful for you and that you would particularly like to support.

Country Mouse is now an international financier, having lent to a group of women with a sewing business and a timber selling business. This link tells you a bit about the women and what they do:http://www.kiva.org/lend/184680?_te=j Humbling stuff.

I promise to stop being worthy now, right after I've reminded you about the WWF Earth Hour on Saturday 27 March, when we switch off our lights for an hour. Sign up at www.earthhour.wwf.org.uk

Is that enough compensating for my Ferris Bueller day at the beach? Back to being a naughty little mouse again tomorrow.

a country mouse is snowed in

2010-03-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

There is a new florist/gift shop in the next village and I can see already that I am going to have to stay well clear of it. It is one of those beautiful little shops you occasionally get that is full of things you want to buy but know are not exactly life's essentials, like embroidered wool cafetiere covers, tiny knitted mice, candy coloured crockery and those little sets of drawers for bits and bobs with mismatched glass and ceramic knobs for handles. Not to mention the flowers. It was Little Granny's birthday so I allowed myself the joy of a browse and came out with a huge bunch of yellow tulips for her, for an unmentionable price, and also this little posy of snowdrops, above, for the much less adrenalin-inducing sum of £1.50, which fitted nicely into my new bud vase (formerly a cayenne pepper jar).
We were snowed in here at the mousehole for 4 whole days so by day 4 the house was tidy, the washing and ironing was done (see what it takes for me to achieve that state of affairs?) and I could sit down with a crochet hook, some charity shop DK and a clear conscience. The crocheted thing above is a case for my camera as I'm sure it's not good for it to be unprotected at the bottom of my bag or in my sand/conker/old bits of twig-filled jacket pockets. I recently read a blog post in which friends were turning out their bag contents and photographing them but unfortunately I can't remember which blog it was to refer you to it. Anyway, the contents were things like Gucci keyrings and Lancaster sun lotion (the lucky blogger was on some exotic beach - I started to feel ill with envy). I'm looking at my bag right now and it contains a purse full of receipts (no money), a bashed pack of ibuprofen, some stones, a dead leaf, some crumpled drawings done by Little R, Grandado's ipod, lots of hankies and a chocolate ladybird, which chimes nicely with the ladybird button on the camera case, I realise as I write. I got the ladybird buttons from a charity shop cardigan and would have paid almost anything (well, up to my £7 charity shop all-time max) for it because my little brother had the same ladybird buttons on his blue dressing gown when he was a very small boy and I am always in the market for a sentimental trip down memory lane.
I also made this apron, above, for Little Granny's birthday using a pattern that I came across through Pomona's blog, Little Cottage Comforts:

http://littlecottagecomforts.blogspot.com/2010/02/making-content.html It is the second thing I have made using my new sewing machine. The pattern is billed as an apron in an hour but I had a pretty good idea it was going to take me rather longer than that. The pattern is very straightforward but I still managed to make many mistakes. If you have a go at it, the important thing is to ensure that the 3 pieces you cut/tear the half yard piece into must be equal lengths. If you do that and if you can work a sewing machine then it is probably very easy. I will definitely make more and perhaps next time I will try a lighter weight fabric as the machine could not go through all the folded hems and there were two exploding needles and much snarling of thread and snarling by me.
Being snowed in also meant I had to make do with what I could get from the cupboards and freezer for feeding Little R and Daddy Mouse, hence the store cupboard muffins, above. They are apple and cinnamon and didn't last long. Little R is catching the blogging bug too. She arranged her lunch very carefully the other day (that's a slice of the date cake, by the way) then asked for the camera so she could take a photo for her blog. I note that her focus and composition are on a par with mine and look forward to reading her content.
Having just about emptied the cupboards and freezer during those 4 days, the timing was right for me to come across The Kitchen Cure:http://cure.apartmenttherapy.com/2010/kitchen-spring on Lucy's Kitchen Notebook blog: http://kitchen-notebook.blogspot.com. I really must learn how to put these links in the text. I think I did it once and have never managed it since. Anyway, the idea of The Kitchen Cure is that you and 2500 other followers do four assignments, and at the end of it your kitchen is completely ship shape. The first assignment was to clear out your cupboards of all the out of date/will never be eaten food and it started last Friday so I'm behind already but is seems very worthwhile so I'm definitely going to give it a go. Despite your groans, I will keep you up to date.

a country mouse thinks of spring

2010-02-22T10:42:00.000-08:00

I looked up from doing the dishes the other day and saw this. When I last noticed it, half an hour previously, the buds were closed. The only word is WOW. These tiny snowdrops in Granny and Grandado's garden may be at the opposite end of the glamour spectrum from the 3ft amaryllis but they are equally WOW.

More flowers, below, this time embroidered ones rescued from the charity shop. How many tray cloths does one mouse need, I know, I know, but they are so beautiful and so well made that I just have to have them.

I also bought these glass jars from the charity shop. I will think of something pretty to put into the big jars. Sweeties are the obvious choice but they wouldn't last long round here. Maybe some of the many shells we stripped from the beaches of Findhorn in the autumn. And the jam jars will come in useful when we start getting fruit from the garden again. Looking at the garden right now, it's hard to imagine it being anything other than muddy, leaf-strewn and cold out there but the amaryllis and the snowdrops have reminded me that things will soon improve.

a country mouse and a country lion

2010-02-14T09:00:00.000-08:00

Country Mouse came over all History Detective the other day. I was reading about a fellow blogger's cycling triphttp://andamentoblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/saturday-morning-cycle.html during which she came upon the oldest layering yew in Scotland. Intrigued, I Googled it and found it is called the Craigends Yew, is 600 years old and turns out to be fairly close to the mousehole. Now very interested, I kept on with the Googling and soon found that the yew was named after Craigends, the ancestral home of the Cuninghame family for centuries until the family line and money ran out and the site, covered in acres of very ancient woodland, was sold for housing. My husband recalls playing as a boy in the ruins of what they called The Manor, and it turns out that was Craigends. When the money ran out the contents of the house were sold at auction but the house, grounds and woods were just left standing for years until the developer who bought it removed the house's roof, at which point it quickly fell victim to weathering and vandalism before finally being demolished in 1975. My husband remembers walled gardens and a well, and wine cellars and a tower. At the top of the tower, surveying the surrounding countryside, stood the lion in the photograph above. The lion now stands outside a community centre with absolutely nothing to tell of its provenance. It has a very human look about it. Perhaps it was modelled on someone.

I found out lots on a really good website, www.craigends.net, set up by someone who grew up in one of the houses built when Craigends was demolished. That's where I learned about the lion, and also about this plaque, above, which stands in the grounds of the kirkyard beside my GP's surgery. Like the lion, I've seen it a hundred times without knowing anything of its provenance. I happened to be at the GP the other day so decided to bring the camera and take myself and Little R on a little history detective trip. I was rapt. She was unimpressed but stoic. According to craigends.net, there were several of these plaques built into the walls of the house, along with the family coat of arms, below, which now lies mossy and neglected in a damp corner of the last bit of housing to be built, on the exact spot where the actual house once stood. You can just make out the Y on the coat of arms, the same as that held by the lion. Views on preserving heritage have changed a lot in recent years and it's very sad to think that if the house, grounds and woodlands could just have held on another say 20 years, this would never have been allowed to happen.

This arch, below, used to stand in the woods marking a long overgrown carriage way. It was dismantled and reassembled here in the same patch of housing and just looks incongruous. Like the coat of arms, which you can see on a plinth beyond it, there's nothing to say what it is or where it's from. The little housing estate here is named Cunningham Gardens: even the original spelling of Cuninghame has been changed. Some trees from the original woods survive, like the Craigends Yew, and the odd elderly specimen dotted among the suburban gardens, but basically Craigends has been completely erased. This link shows it really well: http://www.craigends.net/o/feature/1 and there have been even more changes in recent years.

The craigends.net website also has some fantastic photographs of the people who lived in the house. It had quite a heyday and there must have been plenty of money sloshing around. There are photos of Victorian ladies at a garden party and some photos of the interior of the house in a magazine which seems to have been the equivalent of Country Living. Latterly it was lived in by two old ladies and there are some good stories from the daughter of their chauffeur. It just utterly amazes me that such a substantial, deep rooted and thriving estate could go so quickly from all that to just nothing. All flesh is grass indeed.

On a less existentialist note, you might like to take a look at my current WiP, a laptop bag from the Cath Kidston book, Sew, and get a peek at my 40th birthday present from Granny and Grandado Mouse, my sewing machine. I have been pining for one for years, fantasising about all the wonderful things I could make if only I had one. Little Granny Mouse says she'll give me some tuition so I must arrange that soon as I'm sure I'm shortening my life expectancy every time I gnash my teeth at it. I think I'm following Cath's instructions to the letter but I have found myself in a situation where in order to insert the inner pocket I would have to be sewing through SIX layers of heavy cotton and that can't be right, can it? And the straps are a story in themselves. I like the fabric but I couldn't stretch to Cath I'm afraid so it's Ikea. I loved the folklory birds and flowers and the stripy lining fabric looked good against it. There's a pouch on the front of the bag and there is meant to be a button hole in it but I know my limits.
I'm in the happy position of having a cake cooling in the kitchen as I type. This is the second time I've made this cake and I really want to pass on the recipe as it is easy and relatively healthy, for a cake. The recipe is from www.soupmaker.co.uk and was created by Soupmaker's mum. You butter and flour a 1lb loaf tin and preheat oven to 180deg. Then put 1/4lb chopped dates, 1tbsp butter and 1 cup boiling water in a bowl and stir to dissolve butter. Add 1 tsp bicarb of soda, one egg, one and half cups of self raising flour, 3/4 cup of sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla essence and a dash of warm milk. Stir it all up, pour into loaf tin and bake for 40-45mins. It has turned out a bit lopsided again but we won't mind about that.
As you may know, I wasn't blogging at all during January so was unable to acknowledge this lovely giveaway I received from Jackie at Button Tree Crafts http://buttontreecrafts.blogspot.com/ It was her bloggy birthday and I was lucky enough to win the above festive parcel containing a Santa dishtowel, a kitchen notepad in a jam jar box and yay! some chocolate snowballs, all wrapped up with some tinkly christmas bells. Thanks, Jackie. Hope you get your house sold soon!

a country mouse returns

2010-02-10T07:41:00.000-08:00

The spring sunlight is showing up the dust, the smell of windowlene is in the air and country mouse is back after a long and unplanned break. Poor Grandado Mouse has been stuck in the Victoria Infirmary, unfondly known as the Vicky, for most of January. Little R and I have been taking Little Granny to visit each afternoon and evening so there has not been time for much else. I have a cousin who is a doctor and knows this place well, and his view is, "If you can walk in, run out." Luckily Grandado Mouse is home again now though and we're all smiling again.

I did hope to keep up with the blogging but found that while I could find time to do some of the things I'd usually blog about if I really made a point of it, I couldn't find time to actually write about them too.
For example, you know when you read a recipe and you think OK, 40 minutes for that bit, 20 minutes for that bit, but you don't take into account all the other blocks of 20 minutes here and there it takes to do things like find that certain pot you need, oh God it's in the garage, re-wash your only decent sharp knife, sterilise the jars...and suddenly it's midnight, you're still stirring and the kitchen looks like a bomb has hit it? I was so determined to use these Seville oranges that I pitched in on my return home from hospital visiting at nine o'clock one night, full of enthusiasm for blogging it all.

It is now referred to as Orange and Ginger Migraine Marmalade in honour of the consequences I suffered the next day. Should you have a bit more time to devote to it than I did, the recipe is here:http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3383/seville-orange-marmalade To make it into ginger marmalade, I bashed up some root ginger inside a muslin bag and tied it to the handle so it hung inside the pot. It tastes good but it left a very sticky cooker.

I can see a theme of MESS emerging here from my "making" activities. Little R was given a paper making kit by her kind aunt, uncle and cousin for Christmas and had been agitating to be allowed to use it. We finally got round to ripping up several sheets of the Racing Post and some egg boxes into tiny bits and left them to soak over night before getting ourselves and the kitchen covered in the resulting pulp the next day.

The kit comes with things I have learned are called deckles to make paper in various shapes so of course we chose the loveheart. The instructions suggested sprinkling on some flower seeds to that the paper could later be planted. We didn't have any so used some of the lavender that's been drying at the kitchen window since summer. Perhaps it would be safe to say it's dry now. My brother, the donor of the paper making kit, was horrified to learn that I got this lavender from Tesco by less than law-abiding means. Every time I went to that awful place during the lavender season I'd bring a pair of scissors and a carrier bag and snip some good handfuls from the miles (and I mean miles - it is one of those massive Tesco Extra places) of lavender planted round the edges of the car park. My conscience is easy on the matter, she said, guiltily. I rarely leave Tesco without having spent in the region of £100 (and still nothing for the dinner), I only took a few sprigs from each plant so there was no damage and anyway they ripped the whole lot out and replaced it with ugly municipal cotoneaster while it was still in full and fragrant bloom.
Here is the result after 24 hours to dry out. It wouldn't stand up to much writing but it would make a nice gift tag or something, and Little R is highly delighted with her work. The stolen lavender smells nice too.
Something else that smells nice is tonight's dinner, simmering away in the slow cooker and allowing me to feel smug and organised. I've been missing doing proper cooking during January as hospital visiting times did not leave much leisure for pottering in the kitchen. We've been eating lots of Marks and Spencer Feel Fuller Longer things as they're quick and easy and had a pound off during January. My goodness, they certainly do what they say on the tin. We would be fuller within 2 minutes of beginning to eat them and be unable to look breakfast in the eye the next day.
This is another made-up sausage casserole thing, this time inspired by The Ample Cook: http://theamplecook.blogspot.com/2010/02/bambi-sausages.html It's venison sausages for Daddy Mouse and Quorn sausages for me, in a sauce of garlic, tomatoes, red wine, mushrooms, thyme, bay leaves and shallots and the plan is to scoff it with mashed potatoes and runner beans later tonight. The chocolate cake below is for pudding and there may even be a slice or two left for Lynn and Annie when they visit tomorrow (if they get here sharp).

a country mouse gets glittery

2009-12-16T13:14:00.001-08:00

It's not your eyes, it's my photography. I borrowed a smart new camera from a friend to see if my antiquated model was at fault but no, it is definitely me. Perhaps I should claim I meant it to be in soft focus. It is LOVE after all, and a little soft focus is often a good thing in that department.
A great deal of mess was created while making this little decoration. The cones were gathered on a winter walk on a dry day last week and left in a box to let any sheltering beasties escape. Little R had a fine old time painting on the PVA glue and covering them, me, herself and the kitchen in glitter this afternoon while I studded the oranges with cloves, stopping every so often to mop up the combat zone. You can see our new tablecloth in this photo: christmas robins, from John Lewis. It was a present from Grandado and Little Granny and makes the room feel very festive. Fortunately, it is wipe-clean vinyl.

I wanted to include this picture, below, as a reminder to myself that the best things in life are sometimes free, or at least quite cheap. I was picking rosemary in the garden this afternoon to make spinach, lentil and rosemary soup from one of my oldest and most favourite cookbooks when I realised how wonderful it smelled, even in the depths of winter, so I picked a big bunch and filled a jug for the windowsill. The tea lights are in flowery glass holders from Ikea which cost 39p each. And the cherries are a wee treat for Little R, who loves them but was refused them the other day in M&S when I realised that they were £3 a punnet. I bought a handful loose today in the local greengrocer's for pennies.
The spinach, lentil and rosemary soup is a recipe I have made many, many times and is from one of my favourite vegetarian cookbooks, Glasgow Greens, by Kathryn Hamilton. My lame photography does not do it justice but it is a wonderful deep green colour and looks extra vibrant when you add some natural yoghurt and a slice of lemon on top. And I see my red Ikea tray making an appearance here for the third time. What a loss I am to the world of food styling.

This soup is great if you're feeling a bit run down as it is so full of nutrition. It's easy to make and you can feel extra smug if you have grown most of the ingredients in your garden, as I have done in the past and plan to get my BTM into gear to do again. You start by softening 2 cloves of garlic and one finely chopped onion in olive oil until translucent, then add 115g red lentils and about 1 tbsp chopped rosemary and stir till coated. Add spinach in handfuls till wilted. The recipe says 450g of spinach but I have found it comes in 200g bags (when not home grown) so that's 2 big bags. Then add about a litre of vegetable stock, cover and simmer for 15-20 mins. Blend, season, and serve. The lemon really adds something and it can be nice to squeeze in some lemon juice as well.
We have some mummy friends and their children coming over to play tomorrow afternoon so I had another go at the River Cottage pear cake, this time making sure to caramelise the pears properly. It looks a lot better than my first attempt. I just hope there's no glitter in it.

a country mouse makes gingerbread men

2009-12-08T09:57:00.000-08:00

At last I have finished the garland of gingerbread men I embarked on two weeks ago. I'm really happy with them, despite the various lumps and bumps and the fact that they do not bear close examination from behind, but then who does. They were easy to make and although it did get a little old by gingerbread man number 3, I thought of Delia and her wise words when making christmas pudding crackers out of filo pastry, "Yes, it is fiddly. But look, it's done now." The cute little robin decoration beside them was a present from a good friend who knows my weakness for robins. We went to two Christmas fairs at the weekend and Little R visited two of Santa's Helper Santas (bit of quick thinking required there). I found a really great bag on one of the craft stalls. The lady who made it makes all kinds of things out of vintage interior designers' fabric. I had never heard of her work but I think I'll be buying more. If you like the look of it, her website is http://www.refashionedwithlove.com/. My bag was only £5 and it is really special in its provenance and is very well made. You can also see Little R's new bag and sweetie watch in the photo. Her bag is so cute. It has a furry ponyskin patterned fleece on the back and was only £1 in the good old charity shop. She carries her wee purse in it and these days there is considerably more money in her purse than there is in mine.

Today we had another of those cosy kitchen afternoons that I love so much. This time we made soda bread with spelt flour from a recipe on the Cottage Smallholder blog at http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/. It's real, proper soda bread with a good hard crust. It's delicious and I'll definitely be making it again. My usual recipe uses natural yoghurt but this one used buttermilk and cream of tartar.

Even Little R ate it. Next time I will put less salt in though, so that I can feel happier about her eating it. These days all she will eat for dinner is plain pasta with parmesan. I put corn or peas or sprouts in as well and she'll usually eat that without comment, and she does eat lots of fruit, but there is very little protein going in other than the odd egg for breakfast. She's even saying yuck to the homemade chicken nuggets. I think it may be a reaction to all the cooking I've been doing over the last few months. She did one day say to me, very firmly, "No more recipes for dinners, please." Perhaps this is the direct action approach now, the talks having failed.

Below is Little R's play dough version of the soda bread. Play dough is such great stuff and it's very easy to make. We got this recipe at her playgroup. Each week a different mum would be responsible for making and bringing the playdough and on more than one occasion a forgetful mum (me) had to run round to the shops for the ingredients and whip up a quick batch in the playgroup kitchen. You need 2 cups of plain flour, 1 cup of salt (to stop the little savages eating it), 2 cups of water, 2 tablespoons of oil, 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar and some food colouring. Boil it all together, stirring all the time, until it makes a ball. It takes about 2 minutes of stirring at the most. Store in clingfilm in the fridge. Other than the perennial favourite, the cardboard box, it has to be one of the cheapest and most fun toys there can be. We're all about the value for money here at Country Mouse Towers.

I'll leave you with a happy thought: Kirstie's Homemade Christmas, Wednesdays, 8pm, Ch4.

a country mouse gets lucky

2009-12-03T02:00:00.000-08:00

Country mouse got oh so lucky in the charity shop the other day. I could hardly squeak for excitement.
I spotted this little house on a high shelf as soon as I walked in. It's a tissue box cover - see the chimney? Every home should have a hand stitched tissue box cover made out of plastic aida. Then I spotted the cushion cover (behind it in the photo above). There were 5 of these cushion covers, all hand made, plus a set of lined curtains, also hand made, all for £4.50. The house was £3, so coming close to breaking the budget, but I just had to have them. With my heart rate climbing and my arms full of swag, I noticed one of my favourite things - an old fashioned craft book (below).

There really are no words to describe the contents so here is a photo of the crocheted swimming costumes to give you the general idea. The little boy's face says it all.
Home for some minestrone soup. As you know, I'm a recovering vegetarian and a fussy one at that, so am only ok with eating certain kinds of meat - organic, high welfare, expensive. My local butcher has some delicious bacon that fits all these criteria and as I had a savoy cabbage from the farmers' market looking at me reproachfully every time I opened the fridge door, minestrone was the answer. It was very quick to make, once the chopping was done. I find it quite soothing to chop vegetables anyway, especially if there's something decent on radio 4 and Little R is happily drawing at the table. I'd like to freeze frame happy afternoons like that. I suppose that's what I'm doing with this blog. It's so nice to look back at previous posts and read about the little events of our lives that I'd probably have forgotten otherwise, or which would at least have melded into a general memory of "cooking" or "walks."

But back to the soup. You heat 2 tbsps of olive oil and add a finely chopped onion, carrot and celery stick. Soften for 8-10 mins, then add 70g pancetta (I used the bacon), 1 clove crushed garlic and 2 tbsps chopped thyme and fry for 2-3 mins. Then pour in 1 litre hot chicken stock, 1 400g tin chopped tomatoes and half of a 400g tin of borlotti beans. Mash the remaining beans, stir into the soup then simmer for 30 mins. Add 125g minestrone pasta (macaroni in my case) and 175g shredded savoy cabbage 10 mins before the end of the cooking time. Add a spoonful of ready made pesto to serve.

This recipe is from a booklet I got inside a Good Housekeeping magazine a few months ago, called 50 Suppers For Under £5. It's really good and I can see myself making a lot from it. The very next night I used the leftover bacon and cabbage to make spicy bacon pasta sauce from the next page in the booklet and it worked out really well too, even though I poured the recommended glass of dry white wine into me rather than into the pot (naturally).

Finally, with a four year old in the house, Christmas starts on the 1st of December. This is her own little tree with a fairy on the top. We'll get the proper tree in a couple of weeks. There is a big country estate not far from here where you can go into the woods and choose your own tree, put a tag on it, then come back for it when you're ready. They give you a hacksaw and you have to cut down the tree then drag it back through the woods to be put through the shrink-wrapping machine (that green net stuff) before trying to fit it into the car without too much injury to self and family. They have carol singers in the courtyard and a craft market in the stables and also a Santa to visit, although as I write this I remember getting a nasty shock last year when we took Little R to meet their Santa and found that he was about 25 years old.

a country mouse cocoons

2009-11-24T10:06:00.001-08:00

The weather here has been atrocious over the last few days so we've been cocooning as much as possible except for the mad dashes to nursery through pouring rain. Little R goes into nursery dressed in waterproofs from head to toe and I am wearing the gear I used to wear to struggle over windswept heaths and hills in a previous job. Work paid for it so I bought the best and it's being severely tested at the moment. At least it dries quickly. All this cocooning is giving me a chance to catch up with the housework and also to do wee extras like hanging these Christmassy Ikea wooden birds and paper stars on the triffid (above). Mistletoe and wine...

We had a friend and her two daughters over to play this afternoon so Little R and I got out the baking book and had a go at Date and Ginger Slice. It was really easy to make, was baked for the time stated in the recipe, unlike my last cake, and tasted delicious. If only it was healthy too. You need: 125g block margarine, 125g light soft brown sugar, 125g black treacle, 175g packet of dates finely chopped, 150ml water, 225g plain white flour sifted, 1tsp bicarbonate of soda, 1 medium egg beaten, 1 heaped tsp finely chopped preserved ginger and half a tsp ground ginger.

In traditional country mouse style, I made a mistake with the recipe. How I will ever return to the world of work I do not know, when I can't even follow a recipe for ginger cake. It was supposed to be one heaped tsp of finely chopped preserved ginger but I just took one piece of ginger from the jar, chopped it up and put it in. That was quite a lot of ginger. Luckily I noticed in time and didn't add the ground ginger. I'm planning to use the rest of the preserved ginger for a Fay Ripley sticky ginger chicken recipe and will blog that when I do it. Anyway, you gently melt the margarine, sugar, treacle, dates and water in a large pot. Stir in the sifted flour, bicarb of soda, egg, preserved ginger and ground ginger. Mix well and spoon into a 28x18cm greased and lined swiss roll tin and bake at 180deg fan for 30-35 mins. Let it cool in the tin for 15 mins then put on a wire rack and peel off the baking paper. Serve on pretty china plates while the rain lashes against the window.
Another good thing about cocooning is that with the housework done, a state of affairs which lasts an hour max, I can pick up a needle with a fairly clear conscience. The tapestry above has been gathering dust for a good while and it only took an hour to finish it off before the house began to resemble a war zone again, so that was fine. Having meticulously stitched the border, I took it to a craft night a few months ago to work on the leaves and really messed them up because I was too busy chatting. It's meant to be oak leaves and acorns, believe it or not. Never mind. I will frame it and hang it in a dark corner and just not look at it too closely.

And this is my latest project, a garland of gingerbread men, from the Tone Finnanger Christmas book (see Shelfari bookcase on right hand margin of blog, below blogroll). The half-stitched gingerbread man in the photo above looks a bit wonky but that's because the page it's on is curved. I felt like Noel Edmonds the other day with his "ask the universe and the universe will provide" patter. I was searching online for brown linen and cream linen, as per the illustration in the book, but was having no luck, so posted a message on Facebook to my craft group friends to ask if anyone knew somewhere to try. I then popped into the charity shop on my way to pick up Little R from nursery and what should I see but a big basket of fabric, including brown and cream linen. Thanks, universe. Let me leave you with this happy thought - Moet £14 at Morrisons: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/cheap-champagne-sparkling-wine.

a country mouse burns a cake

2009-11-16T10:12:00.000-08:00

This is the farmers' market I go to every couple of weeks with a German friend. She is a very careful shopper and makes sure she always gets the best quality food to feed her family. She's a great example to country mouse, who is getting lazy and has been spending a bit too much time and money in Marks and Spencers recently. As you can see from the photo above, however, we are not spoiled for choice in terms of fruit and vegetables. Cabbages, turnips, parsnips, brussels sprouts, cauliflower and some hard pears, and that's yer lot, missis. Quite a contrast to the amazing markets on Lucy's Kitchen Notebook which I like to imagine myself wandering through in the French sunshine, wicker basket in hand. A farmers' market on a Scottish November morning is rather a bracing place to be and you certainly feel you've earned your dinner. On this particular windswept morning I felt like the hunter home from the hill. I bought half a dozen medium eggs from the stall below (love that tablecloth) with the intention of using them with the hard pears to make Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's pear and almond cake.
It's a variation on the apple cake that I made so many of during the late summer/early autumn when I was getting bags full of apples from Grandado and Little Granny's trees. The recipe looked very easy, and having seen the man himself making it on TV the other night, I felt fully equipped to give it a go. Apparently it doesn't matter that that the pears are hard as the heat from the caramelising process makes them soft and juicy.

You need 3 conference pears, 25g unsalted butter and 1tbsp granulated sugar to make the caramelised pears for the top of the cake. You melt the butter at a high heat then add the pears, peeled, cored and quartered, and cook gently until they begin to colour. Then add the tbsp of granulated sugar and shake the pan till the pears are coated. While Hugh did all of the above he was busy beating the butter and sugar for the next stage, but I know my limitations so did the pears first then tackled the beating bit. You use electric beaters, unless you are very strong, to beat 300g of softened unsalted butter until soft and pale. Add 250g caster sugar then beat in 4 medium eggs (above), one at a time, thoroughly combining each one before you add the next. Then fold in 150g wholemeal self raising flour, 150g ground almonds and a pinch of cinnamon and turn the mixture into a greased and lined 23cm springform cake tin. Arrange the pears on top and pour over the caramelised butter/pear juice from the pan.
Bake, says Hugh, for 35 mins at 170degC. Well, after 35 minutes my cake was wobbling in the tin when I pulled out the tray to check it. 10 minutes after that there was no perceptible change and a skewer came out slathered in cake mixture. I covered it with foil (top getting dangerously dark), turned it up to 180deg and gave it another 10. Then another 10. After baking the damn thing for more than an hour I lost patience and took it out. Here's the result:

It didn't look too good, but it tasted fine once we'd scraped off the burnt bits. I would bake it again, but perhaps at 180deg from the start and I would caramelise the pears for longer so there was less buttery juice soaking into the mixture. Cake is cake, after all, and country mouse has never met a cake she didn't love.

a country mouse buys some books

2009-11-12T09:38:00.000-08:00

Remember Bunty? Remember the Four Marys? "Mary Simpson, Mary Field, Mary Radleigh and Mary Cotter were all in the Third Form at St Elmo's School for Girls. They were great friends, and shared a study in St Bee's House." And were candidates for an Anti Social Behaviour Order. Take a look at this.
One morning, the Headmistress, Miss Creef, had an announcement to make. The girls were to help move the books from the library and stack them in the gym so the library could be re-decorated. Mabel's response, which I will have to type out because my photography is so rubbish, is, "Why should we do this kind of work, anyway? We should protest, Veronica!" The Four Marys' response is VIOLENCE. Likewise when Mabel and Veronica (with matching bad-girl hair dos) refuse to take part in a fire drill organised by the safety-conscious Marys. Again with the brute force.
The final scene is a fire drill in which Mabel and Veronica think there really is a fire and get stuck on a ledge outside their bedroom window. The Marys lay mattresses on the ground then gather 20 girls to hold a tarpaulin over it. I cannot bear to put the ensuing illustration on my blog. Raddy to Mabel and Veronica, "Stop moaning, you're down safely." Cotty to Simpy, "Simpy, I think they should be taught another lesson. Give them a few tosses!" And they do so, with vim and vigour. The last word goes to Dr Gull as the assault on Veronica and Mabel continues in the background, "Well, Miss Creef, thanks to the Marys we're now prepared for any emergency we may have at St Elmo's. Their safety campaign has been a big success!" Mabel and Veronica's mater and pater may be considering legal action.

On a very much less aggressive note, you might like to see my other purchase, this little Ladybird book, entitled "Learnabout...Cooking." Both of these books were charity shop buys, by the way, and were 20p each, so I'm not busting the budget. Recipes include Banana Snow, Scotch Eggs, a Cheese and Pineapple Hedgehog and, below, Vanilla Ice Cream, featuring Bird's Dream Topping as an ingredient.
And here is the very party I have striven each birthday for 4 years to achieve for Little R. I had not realised I had been striving for this until I saw this picture, but now that I do see it, there's just no denying it. Orange and Lemon Fizz all round. Cheers!

a country mouse finally blocks that blooming scarf

2009-11-10T08:03:00.001-08:00

Little R, Daddy Mouse and I went to the local bonfire night on Friday and came home absolutely clarted in mud. Today I was forced to accept that I now have no sartorial standards whatsoever when Little R pointed out to me (in the middle of Marks and Spencers food hall) that I had mud all over the front of my jacket. So I did, great big dauds of it, from her muddy boots when she was sitting on my shoulders at the fireworks. Is this old age? When I am old I shall wear purple? Or maybe I should start looking in a mirror occasionally. Or (much more country mouse's style) just get a scarf and cover it up.
And squeaking of scarves, here is the pile of raggy old flowers I crocheted for my sister's scarf a VERY long time ago. It sat reproachfully in my crochet bag waiting for the ends to be sewn in until yesterday afternoon, when I could stand it no longer and finally picked up the needle. Wait till you see the miracle worked by blocking.

You plunge your precious handiwork into a basin of cool water with a little bit of very mild detergent, such as a baby soap powder, then squish and soak it until every fibre has been thoroughly wetted. Then remove, carefully wring out and rinse twice in clear cool water. Squeeze out the excess water then lay on a folded towel and push and pull it into the exact shape you want it to dry into. You can pin it if you want to be extra precise. Leave it for a day or two until it is completely dry, then, ta da. Despite having done this before and witnessed the miracle of blocking, I must admit I was quailing a bit as the flowers looked so very twisted and scrappy when they were wet, but look, it turned out fine after all:

The flowers look a bit crumpled here but that's only because of the way they are draped around Scotland's Next Top Model. I will wrap it up in some pretty paper and give it to my poor wee sister before she freezes on these cold winter mornings.

And finally, here is an oil painting I bought this afternoon in the charity shop for the rather hefty sum (on my charity shopping scale) of £7. I felt able to splurge because my kind sister and brother and their families gave me a very generous amount of money for my 40th to be spent on a painting. There's even a couple of bob left. In this photo you can see the lovely carpet we've got in the study at the moment. Yes, that's right - 22mm chipboard, neatly edged in gripper rod. The aquarium leaked all over the carpet a couple of months ago while we were out and both the aquarium and the carpet had to go to the dump. One of these days we will get a replacement I suppose but there are so many things I'd rather spend money on and then there are all the things I have to spend money on such as car tax and car servicing and other dull things like that. I tell you, this stay at home mum bit is not so much fun when it comes to being utterly skint. I am fed up being skint. I want to go somewhere posh and SPEND LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY!!!!

a country mouse and a christmas robin

2009-11-05T12:21:00.000-08:00

Little R and I are back on our feet at last after a horrible week-long virus which kept us both in bed with our eyes shut tight. Now that it is over it is hard to remember just how bad it was but truly, it was bad. It is never easy to be ill when looking after a little one but when you are both ill at the same time it really is hard going. It has certainly been a reminder to look after our health and to appreciate it. We wrapped up warm and ventured out to the shops for supplies this morning and came back with this little chap, the first Christmas decoration of the season and it's not even fireworks night yet. I'd like to claim it is me being organised but of course it's just that I can never resist a robin.
The worst of being ill was that Little R and I missed her aunty's wedding. Little R was to have been a flower girl. We were so sad to miss it but unfortunately there was just no way either of us could have managed it as we were basically unconscious. Daddy Mouse walked his big sister down the aisle and by all accounts (well, his account!) gave a wonderful after-dinner speech, then brought us back some wedding cake the next day and this beautiful posy which Little R was to have carried on a ribbon. She would have looked so sweet and it is such a shame that she missed seeing all her relatives, and seeing her aunty as a beautiful bride.Before I succumbed to the mystery illness I was working on some wrist warmers like, it would seem, everyone else in blogland. Unlike everyone else though, I messed up the pattern! You will no doubt recognise the wrist warmer notion from Lucy's Attic 24 blog. Lucy chained 35 on a 3.5mm hook. Well, I was too lazy to go and look for my 3.5mm hook so chained 35 on a 4mm hook and ended up with rather large wrist warmers. I decided to turn them on end as a way of narrowing them a bit so now have vertical instead of horizontal stripes. This affects the way they sit on my wrist so instead of wrinkling down nicely in concertina folds they are a bit like armoured gauntlets, but never mind, they will do the job on cold winter mornings and they used up all the odd bits of Debbie Bliss wool I had left over from my sister and sister in law's scarves. One of these days I will sew in all the ends of my sister's scarf that I photographed in a very early blog post and then block it and photograph the blocking process like I promised. I just absolutely HATE sewing in ends! As an experiment, I crocheted in the ends on the first gauntlet and left them loose on the second to see which was easier. Crocheting them in was easier, and now I have another load of ends to sew in. Grrr!
But I will smile and make the best of it because.....
...it seems I've been nominated for a Lemonade Award for "seeing blessings where they're not obvious and making lemonade instead of complaining about sour lemons." The award is being given by Beth at The Linen Cat Blog and I've been nominated by Anne at Andamento, my own absolute favourite blog, so it is a real thrill. Apparently I have to write down some things I am grateful for and then nominate some other lemonade-making bloggers. OK, here goes:

1. I am profoundly grateful for my amazing daughter and my happy-natured husband, and for my loving parents, wise brother and sparkling sister, and their families too.
2. I am lucky enough to have some really good friends - strong, unique women who enrich my life.
3. I am grateful for my good health and for that of my family and friends.
4. I am incredibly lucky to be what I want to be in life - a mum who is here at home with my little girl. It's not for everyone but for me it is the most precious dream of my heart and I treasure every moment of it.

I have some lovely blogs to nominate. Unfortunately I am so rubbish at computery stuff that I am not able to write them as links in the text and so have to put their full addresses:
http://theamplecook.blogspot.com/

http://smallthingssmile.blogspot.com/

http://sewpatchwork.blogspot.com/
http://thecoffeelady.blogspot.com/

http://countryinthetown.blogspot.com/

And the link to the beautiful and inspiring blog which nominated me, Andamento, is http://andamentoblog.blogspot.com/

I dread the day I go back to work and have to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of computers. When I started work in the civil service, many moons ago, we used fountain pens and wrote on foolscap. Sounds like something out of Dickens now, but that's the way it was, and that's what I'm comfortable with, dammit! Oops, I may have just blown my chances of the lemonade award.

a country mouse visits a big city

2009-10-26T11:14:00.001-07:00

Country Mouse is still recovering from a big trip to Edinburgh the other day. An old friend and I went to a few of what used to be our favourite haunts when we both lived there. Susie's Wholefood Diner (below) sounds rather worthy but is a fantastic place to eat and the scene of many good times. In the olden days it was called Seeds and had rough plaster walls painted a warm golden colour and huge handpainted pictures of vegetables. Seeds is gone but Susie's is licensed so hey ho. It still has the rickety wooden tables and the same dodgy chairs and the menu hasn't changed in 20 years. If you ever visit Edinburgh and are feeling vegetarianly inclined, it's on West Nicolson Street.
Also on West Nicolson Street is one of the best pubs in Edinburgh, the Pear Tree. It has the most beautiful garden with a canopy of fairy lights in the trees. The house was built by a merchant in 1749 or something and is full of old books, paintings and big squashy couches. Unfortunately we had to give it a body swerve as there was an - eek- TV, showing - eek eeek eeeek - football.And below is a photo of one of the gates into the dark and gothic Greyfriars Churchyard. I couldn't get a decent picture as there was a City of Edinburgh wheelie bin jammed up against it. As a child I was very interested in the story of the loyal little dog, Greyfriars Bobby, who never left his master's grave. How did he eat? How long did he last with no food? Where was he buried? I can see where Little R gets this question, question thing from. If you feel like a good greet, have a read at this:http://www.stuckonscotland.co.uk/edinburgh/greyfriars-bobby.html and as a bonus you will find out how he ate and where he was buried, just like I just did when I read it two minutes ago after 35 years of wondering. Not constantly.

After our delicious lunch my long-legged and super-fit friend marched me at speed to Maxie's wine bar on Victoria Street. There is a roof terrace which must be amazing in the summer but as it was a bit cold for us oldies we went inside.

This is Victoria Street at 5pm on the day the clocks went back, so 6pm really. That's the Grassmarket running along the bottom of the street. You can just see in my bad photo a brightly spotlit stone plinth just where Victoria Street meets the Grassmarket. That's where the hangings used to take place. There are eyewitness accounts which tell of Victoria Street being solid with people and the windows and roofs all completely full as everyone jostled for a good spot from which to watch the executions, and the householders used to charge big money. That's Edinburghers for you.

We were good girls, and instead of phoning our husbands and saying we were having such a good time that we were going to stay out for longer, my friend put me on the 6pm train as arranged and DH and Little R picked me up in Glasgow, very happy to be back home after my wonderful adventure in the big city.

a country mouse has a happy halloween

2009-10-21T09:36:00.001-07:00

Little R just discovered that her aunt's wedding, at which she will be a flower girl, is taking place on Halloween and so she will not be going out guising. Cue shrieks and gnashing of teeth. I love Halloween too so we're having it early in this house. I have happy memories of a Halloween in Nova Scotia, where these things are done in style. So far we have a paper lantern pumpkin garland up in the hall, a witch-on-a-broomstick-shaped helium balloon and orange halloween straws with pumpkins and bats on them. The witch balloon is giving me the creeps. It drifts around of its own accord from room to room and it can be rather disconcerting to find it in the bedroom when two minutes ago it was downstairs getting in my way in the kitchen.
Below is a close up what Little R calls her Mildred Hubble dress, which is proving to be a great bargain in terms of price per wear as the fashion magazines say when persuading you to buy Agnes B instead of Dotty P.

The last few days have been busy and not particularly photogenic but I did manage to pick up a couple of bargains along the way. The Nigella jar above was from Cancer Research and cost £1. It needed a good scrub in - yay! - fairy liquid, but that was no hardship for country mouse. The wee book was 10p in another charity shop and the oven gloves were £4 in Matalan, reduced from £8. They are really good ones - long and heavily padded - and they have flowers and cupcakes on them. They are from Anthea Turner's range at Matalan, and I am now going to expose myself to great scorn by saying that I REALLY LIKE ANTHEA TURNER. No one else seems to. I say hooray for anyone who likes washing up as much as I do, and folding towels just the right way and using lavender water when ironing. And eating Flakes.

Here is the final version of the Findhorn blanket. I would have done a few more rows but my dad snaffled it to wrap up in against the cold winter breezes in his and mum's house. Mum is a fresh air fiend and does not agree with cosseting people with luxuries like central heating. I remember trying to study in that house when I was at uni and not being able to hold the pen properly because I had to wear gloves. Yes, they breed 'em tough in Scotland.

And finally, birthday cake no.4. Jelly Tots and everything. See, there are some good things about being 40.

a country mouse crochets up a storm

2009-10-17T03:20:00.000-07:00

Country Mouse's crochet hook was smokin' last night. The postie finally brought my wool and I was able to crack on with this baby bottle holder for my nephew's birthday. I had to get it done as I'm seeing him today, so I went like the clappers and finished it at five past midnight this morning. Hook, hook, hook, sizzle, hiss.Here's the final result. The book is I Love Crochet by Rachel Henderson and Sarah Hazell. It has lots of easy projects but I can't share them with you yet as I have very ambitious plans to make some as Christmas presents and some of the recipients read this blog. The wool came from http://www.laughinghens.co.uk/ and arrived in a very exciting parcel, in which each ball of wool was individually wrapped in pink tissue paper. An absolute joy to receive. I would not like DH to know quite how much I spent though.

I also made my nephew a fleece hat from a pattern in another great book, Crafty Mama, by Abby Pecoriello. I highly recommend this book for quick presents as none of the projects require needle and thread, just a hot glue gun and some decent scissors. The wee red baby-wipe box below is an idea adapted from Crafty Mama. There is a pattern in the book for a baby-wipe box covered in funky fabric, which looked great but was footery to make and wasn't terribly durable. This version, with puffy stickers, might last a bit longer and will look cool in his nappy bag.

And since it is our anniversary today I made DH the sort of boy food he likes for dinner last night: chicken and ham pie and apple and blackberry crumble with ice cream. Good old Fay had a recipe for both. I padded the chicken pie out with extra leeks because I use organic/free range chicken, which costs a bomb for not very much.

I use ready made pastry for everything and wouldn't know where to start to make my own. So, for my version of Fay's recipe, you need a pack of ready-rolled shortcrust pastry, 1 tbsp olive oil, 2 leeks finely chopped, 2 organic chicken breasts chopped to bite size pieces, 1 organic chicken stock cube, slices of prosciutto ham torn into strips, handful of shredded basil leaves, 8 tbsps double cream, 1 beaten egg. Oven 200deg (fan). Sweat leeks for 5 mins in oil, add chicken and brown for further 5 mins then pour into oven dish. Add the ham, basil and pepper then pour over the cream plus 4 tbsps of the stock. Pop on the pastry lid, brush with egg then bake at 200deg for 20 mins then turn down to 180 next 20 mins. Fay's version involved a loose bottomed cake tin and a pastry base as well as a pastry top but that looked like a lot of faff for a country mouse.

The crumble recipe turned out great and this time I even remembered to add the sugar to the crumble mixture. I used 6 small gala apples and 2 punnets of blackberries. Peel, core and slice the apples and put with washed blackberries into pan with lid along with a splash of water and cook gently for about 5 mins till softened. Pour into dish and put crumble mixture on top. Fay's crumble mixture is 120g wholemeal or spelt flour, 40g light brown sugar, 30g ground almonds and 100g butter, cubed. Bake for 40 mins at 180deg (fan). She suggests only scattering extra sugar on one half of the crumble topping so any children who eat it don't suffer too much in the way of dental trauma but Little R would never stand for that. She scoffed every scrap and says she wants it for dinner - not pudding - every night from now on.

a country mouse confesses

2009-10-14T02:39:00.000-07:00

OK, OK, the landmark birthday was my 40th. So far it's not been too bad: 3 birthday cakes and counting. We're having a big family get-together at my parents' house this weekend and I have high hopes of getting cake no.4.
My husband writes me a little poem every year for my birthday. That is not as revolting as it sounds as they are always very cheeky and insulting. This year's effort:
The big forty comes the big forty goes
Aches and pains will follow.
Your mind says you can
But your body knows best
Better rest for a while
Between dishes.
He pointed out that as we met when I was 21, I have now known him almost as long as I haven't known him. Aaaaaaargh.
While I still can, before my elderly body quits on me altogether, myself and a friend plus our little ones went for a little walk in the woods the other day. I was busy taking photos of the trees overhead when a very large dog rushed up to the girls, barking and slavering right at them while they screamed in fear. No owner to be seen. Country mouse was over there in one mighty bound, adrenalin pumping and ready to boot that dog to kingdom come if need be, when the owner appeared, without a lead, failed to recapture her pet, and proceeded to give the girls a bossy lecture on how not to behave when a dog is barking at them. And then my friend stepped in dog poo when strapping her son into his car seat. Apart from that, we had a lovely time and the girls played at being ducks, laying eggs (stones) in nests, and dogs, trotting along beside me on leads made from corn stalks and twigs. My daughter was Lucy the Dog and my friend's daughter was Woof Woof Ziggy the Dog. Lucy and Woof Woof Ziggy set a good example to other dogs by enjoying their walk without terrorising small children or doing their business in the car park.

Above, The New Shoes. Oh, I love them. It's a struggle to get Little R to wear anything at all on her feet, and she considers either bare feet or bare feet in wellies to be suitable for every occasion. But she is happy to wear these amazing shoes which have little lights on the heels which flicker as she walks, and she will even wear socks in them too. I just realised my impulse there was to type Flickr. I am also finding myself reluctant to take photos if they are not going to end up on my blog. I think perhaps I need to get some perspective.

I bought 2 of these bowls and plates the other day in the charity shop for £2, with their appearance on this blog entirely in mind. They are made to look like canteloupe melons and have a glowing golden colour inside which is not showing up too well in this photo. Goodness knows when I will ever use them but I just loved the autumnal orange so am keeping them out on the worktop for ease of admiration. Another glorious orange glow emanates from this capsicum plant which is, so far, doing well on the kitchen windowsill. A country mouse's mind turns to thoughts of butternut squash soup...and how photogenic it might be.

a country mouse feels the beat from the tambourine

2009-10-11T05:16:00.001-07:00

"You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen, doo doo doo doo doo doo..." I regret to report that country mouse was singing those very words, at top volume, at one o'clock this morning in a chinese restaurant karaoke room.

It was a, shall we say landmark, birthday for myself and 3 others so we got our mummy friends together and hit Sauchiehall Street to sing, dance and eat noodles. The karaoke DVDs caused much hilarity. They were obviously too cheap to pay broadcast fees for the proper videos for the songs so we got completely random footage instead. Girls looking thoughtful while wandering around wearing bikinis featured heavily, as did shots of, of all things, Georgian terraces in Bath, Sydney harbour and, best of all, Bavarian folk dancers slapping their thighs and giving it laldy to I'm A Believer. Everyone was up singing and dancing and many unfortunate cats were strangled.

Above is a photograph of the birthday cake our friends presented us with - mmm, chocolate sponge AND chocolate icing. We also each recieved a helium balloon with a big number on it, which we had to carry through all the YOUNG revellers on the way to our cars. Thanks for that, girls.
And on the subject of chocolate (one of my favourite subjects, after all), here are the chocolate chip cookies Little R and I made the other day. We got the recipe from Andamento's 7 Oct post. http://andamentoblog.blogspot.com/ Or you can click to enlarge the photo below and try to decipher my scribbled version.

Unfortunately we had no chocolate chips, so Little R had lots of fun bashing a chocolate bar to bits using her own little rolling pin. She was lethal.

The result is shown below. They are a bit chunkier than Andamento's version so next time I will squash them down a bit flatter before baking, but they tasted delicious and didn't hang about for long.I am going to lay off the biccies for a while though, now that I'm not as young as I used to be. Have to do a lot of booty-shaking to work off that lot. You can dance, you can jive....

a country mouse takes a shortcut

2009-10-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

It pains me to look at this project. These are little bootees, knitted with silk wool, which I started just after my sister had her second son, a year ago. The pain is from the RSI which I get every time I pick up the 2mm bamboo needles. It's like knitting with cocktail sticks. If I ever get these finished I will sew some satin ribbons or buttons on them and put them in one of the Ikea shadow frames for his bedroom wall. The baby whose tiny feet would have fitted these bootees is now walking and wearing big boy shoes, and at the rate I'm going the picture will be up for about a week before being replaced with pop star posters and lists of football fixtures.

And now for the shortcut. After an anguished phone call yesterday, when I moaned that I can never get everything done, the mess is never ending and no one appreciates anything I do in this house, my organised mother (with remarkably little schadenfreude) gave me some advice: GO TO MARKS AND SPENCERS. And so I did, and I found this:

Yes, one pot sausage casserole. All you need is one sharp knife (to puncture the plastic), one casserole dish and one oven. Result:

And best of all, when DH ate it, thinking I'd made it, he said, "That was nice but not as good as the one you did the other night."

With no mess to clear up and with Little R sound asleep at a reasonable hour, I poured a glass of good red and settled down to read Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser. Country mice love a good military memoir.

a country mouse goes for an unexpected bike ride

2009-10-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

Another harvest of apples from Grandado and Little Granny's tree. I was just contemplating making apple chutney when my friend rang and invited me to join her on a bike ride. She had already been out and about for hours, making an epic journey uphill and down dale, and suggested I come along for the nice easy section along the cycle path, via a car boot sale. Bargains ahoy. I strapped on my helmet and wobbled off in first gear.This is the bike post-car boot sale. Predictably, when I got home DH was wondering how it was possible to go out on a bike ride and still spend money. The orange bag contains a fish tank which cost £2 (despite already owning a hamster, named Beautiful Rose, Little R longs for a goldfish) and the other bag contains a jar of elderberry and apple jelly (£1).

My friend and I parted company a mile or two after the car boot sale and I went back the way I'd come, puffing and still wobbling but very pleased with my expedition. I think I went about 7 miles in all, which is not bad for a lazy little kitchen mouse such as myself. This is a photo of a view from one of my many stops to admire the scenery (ahem).

This, below, is the view from the cycle path as it reaches the village. Home at last, rather redder than when I set off.

And these are my purchases. Little R and I filled the tank and switched on the pump to get the water ready for when Mrs Goldie joins the family. That's a wee friend for Mrs Goldie, patiently awaiting her arrival.

After lunch, Little R and I headed off for Tesco (how I hate that place), leaving happy DH to watch the football in peace. We took the scenic route and paused to take a photo.

It was country mouse's made up sausage and bean stew for dinner tonight. A birra this, a birra that, bish bash bosh. I fried the sausages then set aside, then softened finely chopped onion, carrot and leeks plus some whole shallots and some mushrooms, then poured in flageolet beans, tomatoes and vegetable stock before adding the sausages back to pan, covering and simmering for about 40 mins. We had it with mashed potatoes with some of the cream left over from Sophie Dahl's baked onions.

I made loads so that will be tomorrow night's dinner too. Phew, a night off from cooking!

a country mouse gets messy

2009-10-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

It was another rainy day today, despite the forecast of sun, so Little R and I spent some time in the kitchen, drawing, making things and cooking. I love rainy afternoons at home. This is the little bead heart she made with ikea's version of hama beads (thanks, andamento, for that tip http://andamentoblog.blogspot.com/). The heart is on top of country mouse's recent favourite items, two thick knitted pot holders, also from ikea, and fortuitously reduced to 99p.

This next photo is Little R making a shell jar. Having stripped the Morayshire beaches of shells we now feel obliged to do something useful with them. We used some of the Early Learning Centre air-drying clay to cover an empty jam jar then pushed some of the shells into the clay. Very Blue Peter. If all goes well we will varnish it tomorrow.

Tonight's tea was quite successful, and seasonal. It was a Sophie Dahl recipe from Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights (p.65) called Grilled Salmon With Baked Onions. I baked the salmon in foil at the same time as the onions were baking in an effort to simplify things and it worked fine.

I had some lovely salmon fillets (http://www.fencebay.co.uk/) from the farmers' market so used that, along with 10 large shallots, about 150ml light single cream and 50g grated parmesan, plus some lemon juice and butter for baking the salmon. You peel the onions then boil them whole for 20 mins (I found 10mins was enough really) then drain, put into a small ovenproof dish, pour over the cream, scatter with parmesan and bake for about half an hour. The salmon goes in about 15 mins before the end. I can see that it would have looked prettier and probably tasted better too had the salmon been grilled and crispy but convenience wins over prettiness for country mouse, and it did look a lot better than would appear from the unappetising photo of burnt yellow slop below, which I publish in a spirit of blogging integrity while resolving to learn to work my camera a bit better.

I didn't try to persuade Little R that baked onions would be delicious and instead gave her pizza and sprouts. She was very pleased to find that is it sprout season again as they are her favourite vegetable. I have a photo somewhere of her standing holding a huge stem of sprouts, almost as tall as her little self, looking like she'd like to eat them raw.

The previous night's dinner was also a success. After the fish-in-conflakes debacle I thought I'd have a go at homemade chicken nuggets and chips instead. I used the Netmums cookery book, Feeding Kids: 120 Foolproof Recipes.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Feeding-Kids-Foolproof-Recipes-Netmums/dp/0755316045 I have had this book for ages but have not really used it as I still feel that Little R should eat the same things we do within reason, just chopped up a bit smaller, and so I don't usually give her "kid food."

Anyway, I embarked on the recipe for chicken nuggets (p. 49) thinking it would be easy. Well, it wasn't technically hard, but boy did it make a mess and by the time I'd finished I'd used every pot in the place. Should you not mind mess and have lots of cooking equipment, then I recommend it as it was a big hit with Little R and DH.

You need 2 large chicken breasts, 2-3 slices stale or lightly toasted white or brown bread, 3 tbsps (I had used at least 8tbsp by the end) plain flour, 1 medium egg, beaten and thinned with a little milk, and a little olive oil. You first have to make the bread into breadcrumbs. This would be literally a whizz in a food processor but poor old country mouse doesn't have one so had to grate the bread by hand. What a drag that was. Then you put all the breadcrumbs into a big food bag, put all the flour into another and put the beaten egg into a bowl. Then cut the chicken into bite sized chunks and prepare for things to get very sticky as you shake the chicken pieces in the bag of flour, then dip individually (the only way it will work) into the egg then shake in the bag of breadcrumbs then place on oiled baking sheet and press more breadcrumbs on top with your egg-and-breadcrumb encrusted fingers. Pray the phone doesn't ring in the middle of this. That's them uncooked, below.

Brush with olive oil then bake for 15-20 mins at 180deg, turning half way. So far, then, I had used a sharp knife, a chopping board, a grater and a baking tray (actually a Pampered Chef pizza stone - cost so much I have to use it at every opportunity), so the washing up was under control; after my neurotic sterilising of every surface touched by raw chicken, that is. But while I was doing the chicken nuggets I was multi tasking, always a mistake, by making homemade chips as well. This involved a pot, another sharp knife, another chopping board and another baking tray, and so the pile of washing up grows.

The chips are a Lorraine Kelly recipe, from Lorraine Kelly's Junk Free Children's Eating Plan http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=junk+free+children%27s+eating+plan. This is another book I've had for a while and plan to make more use of. It is really good for planning what to eat for the week as it suggests recipes for chicken/turkey days, fish days, bean days, vegetarian days, "you choose" days plus recipes for weekends, lunches and puddings.

Anyway, the recipe for chips is on p.141. You scrub some baking potatoes then cut into wedges and boil for ten minutes before chilling them again in cold water. You then use your fingers to toss them in a big bowl with a little olive oil (that's another bowl for the washing up right there, plus the pot for the 3 min boil) and bake for 25 mins at, she says, 220deg but I just put them in at the same time as the chicken and they were ready. Turn them a couple of times during cooking and the final result of all this palaver is shown below.

Can you imagine the state of the kitchen by the time this little lot was dished up? Adding on the 2 pots for the peas and sweetcorn, all I can say is thank goodness I've got a dishwasher, and thank goodness I don't have a full time job. There is absolutely no way anyone could cook this for their kids' dinner after a day at work. The hunt for EASY good dinners continues.

PS my dishcloth and fairy liquid fetish continues to flourish and I was able to console myself with a good bubbly session of worktop washing afterwards.

a country mouse has some visitors

2009-10-01T04:47:00.001-07:00

We were greeted yesterday morning by two curly-horned sheep making themselves at home on the lawn. Little R was delighted, "They must have knowed I always wanted pet sheep!" The sheep spent most of the day there and on our neighbours' lawns before being recaptured by the farmer so Little R was able to keep up a running commentary on their activities, like a mini David Attenborough. "Now a magpie has landed. Now they are looking at the magpie. Now one of them has done a sheep's dropping!"

Having seen off the sheep, Little R made a treasure hunt for me to follow. The treasure map (below) depicts me at various stages of the hunt and shows my newly short hair, which Little R says makes me look like Mowgli.

The hunt involved following a line of toys, cardboard boxes and dolls house furniture leading through the TV room, upstairs and into the upstairs hall. Each item had a little plastic farm animal underneath or inside it and each animal had to be found then listened to while it told me a clue (usually, "Keep going.").

I was thoroughly charmed, lavishing praise and taking photographs, until I came to the treasure. It was a tube of smarties I'd already told her that day she couldn't have. Out-smartied once again.

This sunflower was planted by Little R with her now retired nursery teacher whom she adored and whose word was quoted as law, Mrs Borland. It's now 7 foot tall and flourishing in the biting autumn weather.

Above and below are photos of some lovely hand-embroidered table linen I bought in the charity shops of Forres and Elgin. I have no idea what I'm going to do with my rapidly growing pile of this sort of thing but feel compelled to rescue it given how much effort has gone into creating it. Perhaps one day I will lead the kind of life in which beautiful table linen has a role.

And this, below, is a status report on my Findhorn blanket. I posted a photo earlier of me on Findhorn beach having a go at the early stages. I did a good chunk last night at the little craft night I do with some friends. It's an ideal project for the craft night as it doesn't take any brain power at all and so doesn't interfere with the important business of chatting and eating home baking. I have messed up two tapestries and some silk bootees in the past through doing too much of the chatting and eating and not enough of the concentrating. Come to think of it, that is the story of my life.

As you can see, it has gone a bit wonky at the edges already but in country mouse's opinion that's all part of the charm. I will keep going until the variegated wool from the time-warp wool shop runs out and then cosy up in it with a nice bit of cheese, oops I mean cup of tea and a biscuit.

Squeak to you soon. Love, Country Mouse xx

a country mouse makes fish popcorn (really) and gets a gadget

2009-09-29T09:51:00.001-07:00

This was not country mouse's finest hour. Perhaps the clue was in the name: fish popcorn. Henceforth I will speak of it in the tones used by Peter Kay's father upon learning there was such a thing as garlic bread. Little R chose it from the recipe book, encouraged by the photo of a small girl in pink holding a paper cone of popcorn (below), and I, being so desperate to find dinners she will eat these days, agreed to have a go. It's a Fay Ripley recipe (p.176).

Things were going great, with Little R whisking the eggs and having a fine old time dipping the fish chunks into the plain flour, then into the beaten eggs then rolling them in crushed cornflakes and laying them out on the baking tray. It made a hell of a mess of the place but hey, it was all in a good cause so I wasn't getting (too) stressed.

We even put them in a paper cone (baking paper) just like the girl in the photo.

And then we tasted them. YUCK. They tasted exactly as you would expect haddock in cornflakes to taste. Fay, how could you.

Last night's dinner was more of a success. I made a sausage stew with pork sausages, quorn sausages, carrots, onions, leeks, flageolet beans, tinned tomatoes and vegetable stock and served it with mashed potatoes and broccoli. This was country mouse's own made-up recipe, concocted out of what the local co-op could provide at short notice, but it was tasty and it all got eaten.

I used a new gadget I'd bought a while ago in the charity shop for £1. It's a brabantia chopper-thingy. I remember that the Pampered Chef party I went to was selling one for some crazy sum like £20 so I was certainly willing to part with a quid to try this one.

I thought at first that it was going to be no good for carrots (see first attempt, above) but soon worked out that cutting the carrots into smaller pieces first and banging harder on the gadget would do the trick, and it did. The same applied to onions (below). If you keep bashing away the bits just get smaller and smaller so it is probably easier than grating carrots but it's not easier than chopping onions as you still have to cut the onions into pieces before putting them into the contraption so you don't even avoid the onion tears. And all the bashing is a lot noisier, if quite cathartic. Verdict: worth £1 plus perhaps a wee bit more for therapeutic value.

a country mouse is home again

2009-09-27T02:15:00.000-07:00

Oh, it's good to be back! We had a wonderful holiday but east west hame's best, especially for a country mouse.

There aren't too many photos to post here however as I was in town mouse mode when I packed the laptop, thinking there would be lots of wifi so I could download lots of photos and even update this blog. Not so. I had to take my camera card to Tesco (and I had promised myself to avoid that evil place on holiday) and get the photos printed before I could delete them and take more.

Here are a few though. This is Little R on Findhorn beach, heading for the sea at top speed and whooping with joy. The two headlands across the water are the Cromarty Sutors, which stand at the entrance to the Cromarty Firth. The folklore is that they were two giant shoemakers (sutors) who used to toss their tools to each other across the firth. Obv.

Findhorn beach is just wonderful. When the tide is out it goes out for miles, with endless stretches of sand with pretty shells like tellins. It's great for flying kites. We brought several with us and when Granny and Grandado came to visit for a few days they had a good time trying them all out. When the tide is in there are ramparts of big white and grey cobbles and beautiful white sands. We also saw seals very close to the shore when the tide was in, about 3 waves out from us, popping their heads up to get a good look. We spent hours and hours on the beach every day, just pottering, paddling and building sandcastle cities.

Below is a photo of DH's and my one night out. The yucky ashtray in the shot is not ours, I hasten to add. When Granny and Grandado came they took us out for an Italian meal then bravely offered to put Little R to bed while we went on for a drink. We strolled round to the Kimberley Inn, a Findhorn institution with fantastic seafood, and watched the sun go down over the bay with a very exotic pear cider on ice. We lasted one hour before the plunging temperature chased us back to the cottage and the roaring log fire. The days were warm (18-20deg) but the nights were not.

During the first week of the holidays we drove up to Sutherland to visit Dunrobin Castle, one of my favourite castles. http://www.dunrobincastle.co.uk/ It's a fair old drive so we stopped at Golspie beach on the way and had a great time gathering white and gold periwinkles. Dunrobin is an incredibly grand fairytale castle right in the middle of some pretty desolate landscape, with sweeping grey seas right at the edge of the manicured formal gardens. It's a physical shock to the senses to see the contrasts. I first saw it when flying from Inverness to Shetland when I used to work up there. The pilot pointed it out between the clouds and suddenly there was this silver brightness on the edge of the winter sea in the midst of unbroken acres of heather and hills. There is a bloody history of course (the Clearances being the least of it) and country mouse has to suspend her revolutionary tendencies when visiting.

We also visited Fort George http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/nairn/fortgeorge/ where I used to work, to say hello to some old friends. It's a very odd place; still threatening and yet useless. It was built at huge expense, going wildly over budget, after the defeat of the Jacobites at Culloden and is heavily fortified with cannon pointing in all directions. It's on a promontary sticking out into the Moray Firth and so there is usually a howling gale waiting for you round every corner. It's still an active army barracks, at the moment for the Black Watch regiment, so the inhabitants are squaddies, historic building conservationists and herring gulls. It's a good place to see the dolphins from though and at around 3pm on sunny days I would sometimes climb up the gun embrasures with my binoculars to watch them leaping.

Speaking of dolphins, we did the tourist bit and went out on the dolphin cruise. We didn't see a single dolphin but had a great time sailing out into the Moray Firth then turning and sailing right under the Kessock Bridge (see photo) to see if any could be found in the Beauly Firth. Amongst other things, we learned from the captain that Margo from The Good Life lives in Fortrose. Country Mouse was thrilled!

We also visited Brodie Castle, a National Trust property not far from Findhorn. It's a sweet little castle which has a relatively happy history other than one very tragic story, which the tour guide told with detail and relish and a complete lack of sensitivity to the presence of horrified Little R. It's the story of Lady Margaret Duff (link to her portrait:

http://www.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=000-000-520-612-C) who married the laird and had 5 children before dying in a fire around 1800. Apparently she dismissed her servant and settled down in bed with a book, unaware that a burning peat had tumbled from the fire and was smoking on the carpet. She fell unconscious from the smoke and awoke to find that her bed, nightclothes and hair were alight. She ran round the room in panic, of course setting fire to everything she touched on the way, and when her husband (devoted, great love story of defiance of parents to marry, etc) rushed in he had to run through a wall of flames to drag her out. She died 3 hours later of smoke inhalation and shock. A truly horrific story, and told to us as we stood in the very room. Little R has asked me many times since to tell her "about the lady who died in the fire." I have sugar coated it as much as possible but she heard the original M Night Shyamalan version so there's not really much I can do in mitigation.

There were a few more places we visited. Cawdor Castle was a good day out (http://www.cawdorcastle.com/). It's still a family home, lived in by the fabulously named Dowager Angelika. When my sister was about 20 she saw a poster with the Dowager's title on it when visiting the castle and asked us who is The Doh-Wagger. We haven't let her forget it. The grounds are amazing. Little R, whispering to us,"I'm being an adult in disguise," boldly asked the lady at the ticket desk if bare feet were allowed then gleefully raced round the gardens for over an hour with no shoes on, hunting (large) frogs and eating wild plums and wild strawberries, and had to be bribed with promises of cake if she would put her shoes on and come inside.

We went to Pluscarden twice (http://www.pluscardenabbey.org/home.asp). It's very quiet, and DH loves it so much that I think he dreams of joining them one day. It says something on the website about feeling the peaceful atmosphere from the hundreds of years of devotion, and actually you really can feel something special there.

Getting thoroughly secular again, we visited Landmark theme park in Carrbridge on the way home (http://www.landmarkpark.co.uk/wild-water-coaster/). That girl of ours is BRAVE. She went on the wild water coaster five times, three times with daddy and twice with me. I was absolutely quaking but did not want her to see that. It was an utterly sickening feeling to whizz down an enclosed, pitch-dark tube in a yellow rubber raft, whooshing uncontrollably from side to side and speeding up and speeding up and speeding up. Little R was cool as a cucumber when the boat came to a stop and I had to sit down for five minutes because I was trembling so much.

Yes, home is safest for country mouse.
And finally, the obligatory blogger's holiday snap of self on beach with crochet:

I have great plans for this becoming a blanket. It took me ten attempts before I could figure out the granny square instructions in my Happy Hooker book. I am a bit dim. The first three rounds are the tricky bit and now it is completely mindless, which I love. The wool is from a lovely old fashioned wool shop in Forres that looks like it hasn't changed since the 50s. In a parallel universe, that is my shop and I stock really great books too, plus coffee and home baking. Since the contents of the piggy bank did not allow me to buy the actual shop I settled for this quick knit arran stuff in various unusual colour combinations which are so ugly they are almost beautiful. Threedoublesasingle, threedoublesasingle.....

a country mouse goes to the seaside

2009-09-12T01:43:00.000-07:00

We're off to the seaside now for 2 weeks. Normal blogging service will resume on 27 Sept or thereabouts. Hooray!
love, Country Mouse xx

a country mouse gets sudsy

2009-09-10T07:52:00.001-07:00

We have quite a colony of big furry butterflies at the moment, despite the frequent heavy rain, and often have 10 or 12 crashing around on the buddleia bush outside the kitchen window all at the one time. If they weren't so beautiful I'd call it an infestation. I just googled to find out the correct term for a group of butterflies and, euphonically enough, it is a rabble of butterflies.

And inside the kitchen window is the sink. Below are some pictures of my number one obsession: dishwashing. I cannot get enough of soap suds (has to be Fairy Liquid), sponges, knitted dishcloths and wooden dish brushes. I have to actively force myself to put things into the dishwasher sometimes instead of filling up a nice deep basin and plunging in up to the elbows.Most of the cloths in the basket above are from Ikea (should you be inspired to stock up) and those below are from Aldi. They come in packs of 3 and are really cheap. I love the luxury of using one once then tossing it into the laundry. They are so thick and soft, and just get better and better the more they are washed. They're also good for washing the worktops as their texture means they scrub as they go along but they are soft enough not to leave any marks. I love to fill up a big basin of really hot soapy water and wash the worktops and the sink. Hmm, am I revealing too much here? Is this actually a little beyond an obsession?

I had the perfect excuse for a thorough dishwashing session today though as I bought the little coffee cups and saucers below in the charity shop this morning for £3. They are bone china, and really unusual. Also completely intact, if a little dusty.

Straight into the hot water with them, and now here is the squeaky clean result:

Oops, a bit blurry again, but you get the general idea. I have promised myself I will not leave them to gather dust in a cupboard but will use them regularly and enjoy them. I had been pining for a cute little plate I'd seen in Country Living but could not justify the expense and am so glad now that I didn't succumb. Here is the link so you can have a little drool:

http://www.johnlewis.com/230545979/Product.aspx It is sweet, but stay-at-home Country Mice can't be choosers and I am very happy with my pre-loved coffee cups instead.

Time for a coffee and perhaps a bit more apple cake and then - hooray! - there'll be a cup and a plate to wash up. Splish splash splosh.

a country mouse and friends

2009-09-09T09:53:00.000-07:00

Country Mouse and Little R had an absolutely lovely afternoon today. Poor Daddy Mouse is at work all day and misses all the fun. He gets to read about it later on the blog though, and eat the leftover cake, so that's ok isn't it?

We started the afternoon by baking an apple cake with the last of the apples we got from Granny and Grandado's tree. Country Mouse has made this cake before and will be doing so again as it is very easy and seems to turn out well. Surprise, surprise, it's a Fay Ripley recipe. You cream 150g of butter with 150g golden caster sugar. Whisk 3 large eggs and 1 tsp vanilla essence and add gradually to the butter/sugar until absorbed. Separately measure out 120g plain flour, 1 and a half tsp baking powder and 80g ground almonds then gradually combine that into the butter/sugar/egg mixture without over-stirring. Slice apples and arrange on top. Bake fan 160deg for about 45mins.

Below, one of the Pampered Chef gadgets I bought at the Pampered Chef/Jamie Oliver party a couple of weeks ago. It is very very very very sharp. These Granny and Grandado apples go a beautiful rosy pink when peeled but here I think they are bleeding.
The leftover apples worked in perfectly, with the very last slice of the last apple (after Little R and I had scoffed a few) fitting in just right.

45 minutes later it looked like this. Perhaps 40 minutes would have been sufficient.

When our friends arrived we went for a walk and a toddle round the village and to the new swing park. Little R and her friend had lots of fun climbing, running, throwing sticks in the river and putting stones up their jumpers and saying they were their babies. Country Mouse and her friend had a relaxing time talking about our current obsessions, which are charity shop bargains, blogging, baking and our babies. Some might say we need to get a life but hey, we're happy. Below, a pawfull of conkers.

The clouds have cleared at last after weeks of constant rain and a few days of absolute deluge, so it was especially nice to get out and about without being soaked. Below is a blurry photo of a freshly hatched conker beside a daisy. This was an attempt so show summer ending and autumn beginning in one neat little image but I think I need to look out the instruction book for my camera.

Below, a tree that fairies live in, according to Little R and her friend:

Below, a picturesque nibbled and faded mushroom photographed by my clever friend, who then gave me a quick and much-needed photography lesson. Fiddlesticks, it was me and not the camera all along.And on the way home, some beautifully rusty wrought iron. The roundels look like wee shortbread biscuits. Or perhaps they are basketballs about to be bounced behind the backs of a pair of slightly aggressive fish.

Then time for the apple cake, served on the 89p plates.

The leftover cake was too big for the tupperware storage box so Country Mouse and her friend had to have another slice to make it fit. We're very good that way.

a country mouse has lots of apples

2009-09-07T10:32:00.000-07:00

Above, what's left of Little R's plum chutney and plum jam, having distributed a few jars amongst carefully selected recipients (the kind ones, who will say nice things about it).

We were given a big bag of delicious apples yesterday from the tree in Little R's Granny and Grandado's garden, so made a fruit crumble with the remainder of the plums added in to make things more interesting.

Added oats to the crumble mixture to kid ourselves on it was healthy (fruit plus oats, after all). Then made it even more healthy by inadvertently leaving out the sugar that should have been added to the crumble before pouring it over the fruit. Oops. After a week of recipes you might think Country Mouse would have learned to read them properly, or even to check as she goes along, but no.

Still, the fruit underneath was lovely even if the crumble was not. The plums were definitely a good addition and Country Mouse was VERY glad when she finished de-stoning the last of them.

Above, a wee charity shop find when we were at the museum the other day. I spotted them in the window as we walked by and darted in to buy them as I thought the price tickets said 39p each. When I got into the shop I found they were actually 89p each and the price gun just had a faint 8. I paid up. It's for charidee.

a country mouse goes to town

2009-09-04T09:48:00.001-07:00

Country Mouse, Little R, Country Mouse's friend and her 2 small boys all went to town today on the bus. We left the car at our friend's house and caught the local bus: a new experience for Little R. There are no, or very few, buses where we live so she has only known the car, with all the CDs, toys and books necessary to aid Madam's travelling comfort.The purpose of our visit was a visit to a child-friendly exhibition at the museum plus lunch. We had a lovely time at the museum and the children were very well behaved. The exhibition was about a baby bee's travels and travails and there were lots of things for the children to touch, look at, lift up, climb over, switch on, etc. A big success.

Little R was particularly taken by the tame pigeons in the pedestrian precinct (above) and Country Mouse got a new pair of shoes for her weary paws in the M&S sale for £13 (below). After a busy day, it will be M&S pizza for tea this evening. Country Mouse will resume normal service as soon as she's had a bit of a sit down and a nice cup of tea.

a country mouse ODs on plums

2009-09-03T14:25:00.001-07:00

This (rainy) afternoon, along with the apple cake, country mouse made plum chutney from the leftover plums. The recipe was from a lovely blog: http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/. The blog did warn that the chutney took 5 hours to cook but country mouse felt equal to that at lunchtime today. By 10.45pm when the chutney was finally bottled she felt rather less relaxed and now never wants to see a plum again.

The ingredients are all wonderful though and the kitchen smelled delicious all day. You de-stone and slice 3lbs of plums (this is no small matter) and put in your biggest pot (I needed the stockpot for this one) along with: 1lb of apples, 1lb of onions, 300g dried apricots chopped into 8s, 200g dried raisins, 1/2lb soft brown sugar, 2 cloves garlic, 1/2tsp cayenne pepper, 2tsp salt, 1tsp allspice powder, 1tsp cinnamon powder,, 1tsp ground ginger, 1 and a half pints of white wine vinegar, 1 hot chilli, 2tbsp balsamic vinegar, 5 juniper berries and 10 black peppercorns. Chop all the choppable things finely and bring slowly to a gentle boil then simmer very gently for at least five hours. Stir when you remember and enjoy feeling a bit like Harry Potter as you do so.

Bubbling merrily (above). Reduced by about half and ready to be bottled (below). Recipients of this chutney will be glad to learn that I first removed the burnt bits from the middle. I had to turn off the gas and put the lid on while I put Little R to bed then simmered it a bit hard on my return to make up for the lost time. This was a mistake and resulted in a darker sticky layer on the bottom of the pan but I think it will still be fine as I tried not to disturb it after that first vigorous stir.

The finished result (below), finally bottled at ten thirty this evening and now being blogged at 10.45pm. How's that for hot off the press. You could almost call it a news FLASH.

Making apple cake and plum chutney on the same day however meant that I was rather countrymoused-out by dinner time and by the time DH arrived home, post Little R's bathtime, Country Mouse was feeling rather frazzled and heard herself squeaking, "DINNER? You want DINNER?" Plum chutney is definitely not conducive to an organised life.

a country mouse bakes apple cake

2009-09-03T12:23:00.000-07:00

I'm getting good value for money out of my £5 Fay Ripley cookery book. Little R and I made Fay's Good Afternoon Apple Cake (p.237) today and had a very good afternoon doing so.

Little R enjoyed licking the bowl and spoon while I had fun arranging apple slices on top of the cake.

Slightly burnt maybe but still tasted good. I had THREE slices and then had to call it my dinner. I had been so busy making apple cake and plum chutney (see next post for the full plum chutney experience) that by 5pm I could not face producing a country mousey dinner so Little R got a poached egg, broccoli and bread and butter, which was fine by her. Below, Little R's pudding.Three little bone china cups from the charity shop (50p each) which are currently brightening up the kitchen windowsill. They matched my cagoule, and few things do.

a country mouse makes sausage rolls

2009-09-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

I've overdosed on being in the kitchen recently so we had a lazy dinner tonight of vegetarian sausage rolls with beans. Little R wolfed them so they definitely count as a success for country mouse. This was another Fay Ripley recipe (p.52). Fay calls them Sausage Rolls on the Run, as if you are only stopping by your kitchen for just long enough to make them in between exciting adventures.

You unroll some shop-bought puff pastry, cut it into 6 squares, brush one edge of each with beaten egg yolk and milk then roll up and squash the ends together. Fay scattered sesame seeds on top but I didn't have any. I baked them for 15 mins at fan 180deg and that was enough. Fay said 200degC for 20-25 mins. Perhaps that would be necessary for meat sausages but I used Quorn ones. Next time I will use more interesting veggie sausages rather than just the plain Quorn bangers, but they were good and, most importantly, well received.

a country mouse cycles

2009-09-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

Today was the first sunny afternoon in ages, so Little R and I went for a cycle along the local cycle path. This was Little R's first time on the cycle path with her big girl bike so she was learning the etiquette of being passed by other cyclists and dog walkers ("Aaaah, mum, mum!"). I was so pleased with her determination. She wobbled off the path twice and landed in the bushes but even though she was howling and tears were streaming down her face she would not hear of going back to the car but got back on her bike and kept right on pedalling. She doesn't get it from me.

We stopped for a breather and Little R picked this flower for my handlebars (above). I can't believe how far she managed to go and we will definitely be doing this again if the weather permits.

The photo above of the 2 bikes is a homage to a photo on my favourite blog, which has inspired me to get on my bike in more ways than one:http://andamentoblog.blogspot.com/

a country mouse makes spagbol in the oven

2009-09-01T10:02:00.001-07:00

Tonight's tea was a rip roaring success. It is another Fay Ripley recipe (p.56) and is called Dan's bung-it-in-the-oven bolognese. I feel its name should be written in lights never mind bold. Little R and I ate every scrap and it was even easy enough for me to face cooking it after an afternoon of making jam and scrubbing the hob. That's a nutmeg balancing on top of the parmesan in the photo below, by the way.

This is a vegetarian version of Fay Ripley's recipe. I caved in and used Quorn mince after my brush with pork sausages the other day. I guess I'm just not ready yet to eat something dead minced up for my dinner. I also did not add 4 tablespoons of milk before serving as Fay suggested as it did not seem to me that this would make mince taste any nicer.

The recipe was the easiest thing I have made in a while. I'll give you my veggie version with the altered quantities and timings for Quorn.

You soften a carrot, a celery stick and an onion (finely chopped for disguise) in olive oil, then add 300g Quorn mince and stir around till the mince is coated in the mixture. Then add 2 tins of chopped tomatoes (my favourite San Marzanos again - 79p a tin not 75p as I mistakenly reported the last time I used them but still worth every penny), 2 tbsps tomato puree (Fay says 200g but that is an awful lot), 1 tsp dried oregano, 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar and a great big pinch of grated nutmeg. Note, no garlic and no mushrooms. Transfer from big silver saucepan (like country mouse, it has worked hard today) into oven proof casserole dish with lid and bake at 160deg (fan) for 1 hour. Then prepare to scrub your casserole dish (see below).

Serve in bowls with spaghetti, basil and lots of grana padano parmesan (nothing but the best for country mouse's cooking).

a country mouse makes plum jam

2009-09-01T08:41:00.001-07:00

Little R and I got a fantastic harvest of plums from the garden (10lbs) and spent the afternoon making plum jam. I used the first recipe that came up when I googled plum jam. The instructions were basic to say the least so I have added in brackets some things it would have been useful to know and which I found out the hard way.

Plum Jam Recipe

4lbs plums, 1 pint water, 4lbs sugar.

1. Wash and wipe the plums. Cut in halves. (I seem to remember reading somewhere that damaged fruit can make jam mouldy so I discarded a lot and put them aside to make chutney later as that does not need the really good fruit. Also you don't need to remove the stones as they bubble to the surface during the cooking).

2. Put into a pan with the water and simmer gently until the fruit is soft. (you need a HUGE pan for this. I ended up ladling it between my 2 biggest pots and making a right mess of the cooker while trying to ensure the proportions of fruit and sugar in both pots were the same).

3. Test for pectin. (I don't know what this is or how to do it so didn't do it and it was fine).

4. Add the sugar, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. (I had to use all the sugar in the cupboard, so a combination of caster, granulated and golden caster sugar. Fingers crossed).

5. Bring to the boil and boil rapidly until the jam sets when tested. (get the stones out while waiting for the set. You really have to boil it hard, and for a good while. You have a set when a teaspoon of the mixture on a plate forms a skin/can be wrinkled with your finger when it cools. I wondered if I'd know when it was the right stage but actually it was obvious).

6. Remove the scum. (use a stainless steel spoon).

7. Pot and seal while still hot. (make sure glass jars and lids are sterilised beforehand in oven and use them warm from oven so they don't crack when jam poured in. Make sure no air under the wax disc).

Then put pretty wee gingham circles on them (recognise the Little White Company pyjama trousers?) and take a photo for your blog!

Messy cooker (above). Took a good 10 minutes of scrubbing to get it clean. Plum harvest (below).

a country mouse cooks chicken stew

2009-08-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

Tonight's tea was a Sophie Dahl recipe called Chicken Stew with Green Olives, with a Fay Ripley recipe, Chinese Roast Broccoli, served with redcurrant jelly that Little R and I made earlier in the summer after picking basketsfull at the local fruit farm. There were a lot of strong flavours and DH and I thought it was a success. Little R was less keen but that could have been due to the glace cherries she scoffed (illicitly) beforehand. I have made the chicken stew a few times now and am a big fan of Sophie Dahl's cookery book (Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights). The recipes use ingredients that I like and it is very easy to find something delicious to cook. Another thing I like about the book is that it has a core of ingredients which she uses in different ways, so once you have bought the more unusual ingredients you are all set to make lots of things with just the addition of the fresh stuff. Definitely a high scorer in helping country mouse achieve an organised life.

One thing I have found to be really important in making dishes which require tins of tomatoes is to use a really good make. The best I have found so far, and I've been consciously looking, is Sainsbury's Taste the Difference San Marzano tinned tomatoes. They are 75p a tin but so are the Tesco organic tinned tomatoes and the San Marzano ones are noticeably nicer. I also add some sugar even if it doesn't say it in the recipe as that seems to take away any bitterness. If only that worked in life.

This recipe uses fennel instead of onions in the tomato sauce, which makes it very summery and fresh tasting, and just before you serve it you stir in green olives (got to be really good quality, either fresh or in oil, not the nasty ones in brine) and big handfuls of fresh basil. I served it with crusty bread tonight and that was the only bit Little R ate. I am not doing too well in my quest to find dinners we can all eat. She keeps asking for bangers and mash.

The Fay Ripley broccoli recipe was very easy and effective. You put the broccoli florets on a baking tray and scatter with ground-up coriander seeds then drizzle liberally with olive oil. You then bake it in a hot oven for 20 mins so you get black bits on it. Really yummy.

The only thing I changed about the Sophie Dahl recipe was that I did not pour in a glass of white wine before adding the tomatoes. I just CANNOT bear to pour a glass of wine into a pot.

a country mouse in a country park

2009-08-30T09:56:00.000-07:00

This afternoon we went to a nearby country park. The park is the gardens and grounds of a large Scots baronial house so there are lots of odd little things to see, such as rickety hothouses (below) and old trees with huge trunks and twisted roots. The root in the photo above looked like a dragon's claw emerging from under the ground. The berries in the photo below looked like they were cuddling up to the hothouse glazing for a bit of warmth and tapping on the door - "let us in!"

The entrance to the walled garden. Shades of Frances Hodgson Burnett. I was looking out for Colin Craven rising from his wheelchair. Sadly there was no robin perched on the wall to show us where the key was buried, and no Dickon surrounded by his creatures. A magical book and one which I look forward to reading to Little R when she's big enough.

One of the last agapanthuses (agapanthi?), braving the wind and rain.

As well as the original hothouses (below) there is lots of Victorian wrought and cast ironwork, walls made of handmade bricks with old apple trees espaliered against them and some beautiful stone carving too. It's all very atmospheric.

The stone bench with wonky steps up to it (below) has been assembled recently from dressed stone pediments and lintels salvaged from some earlier structure. It sits on the edge of what was once an ornamental pond but which has now been turned into a maze (overgrown and very muddy) made of cobbles laid in the pattern of a celtic knot. There are a lot of water weeds and water loving plants around this area. Perhaps the pond was created in the first place because of a high water table in this spot. Little R thought that Tyrannosaurus Drip would love it.

A sweet little bird table, below. It kind of looks like it's been put together from various odds and sods of stone rather than purposely carved.

The rear view of the house (below). Note the solar panels on the roof of Rapunzel's tower. A few years ago, DH and I watched a production of Much Ado About Nothing in the garden of this house and were almost eaten alive by midges. I can hardly look at the place without flinching, even now. There were a lot of midges there today too but we had come prepared with some kick-ass anti-midge potion plus antihistamine cream (I'm allergic).

And back home, I came across a garden gnome painted by Little R with Daddy yesterday. He looks very pagan amongst the flowers. I love the autumnal shades of his hat, his jaunty yellow nose and the jolly red wellies. His name is Gnomie.

a country mouse parties

2009-08-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

Country mouse went to a kitchenware party last night (joint Pampered Chef and Jamie Oliver) and spent £45 on stuff she doesn't need and which won't help her cook better or have a more organised life. Sauvignon Blanc is heady stuff for a mouse.

Above: the Pampered Chef goodies. Below: the Jamie Oliver goodies. All displayed in country mouse's sister's immaculately clean and tidy house. How does she do it. Note country mouse's nephew's artwork on the walls. The painting with the fish and the big black blob shows "Nemo and his Dad and the underneath of the boat." Yes, he has painted the boat from the viewpoint of the fish.

At last we have a new playpark. The villagers got together and raised money for it through a combination of lottery funding, money from the council and things like garden parties and face painting. We had to do this because the old playpark was removed and replaced by a car park when a beautiful old church in the village was being turned into flats. The church was really special. Like the rest of the village, it was built by a Victorian Christian philanthropist for the orphans who lived here in those days. Every column inside it was carved with different motifs, like fruit and leaves, and every pew had different, child-sized carvings on it. The stained glass was stunning and again was specially for the little orphans, with images of happy bible stories that they could understand and enjoy looking at. It was utterly tragic to see it all removed and being replaced with yet more "luxury apartments."

Country mouse was at the playpark yesterday in the pouring rain, getting a sign installed to thank the sponsors in time for the official opening ceremony today. We're also getting a cycle track marked out in white paint on the adjoining patch of old tarmac. Little R loved jumping up and down in the puddles more than she loved the swings. Perhaps we could have made some financial savings on play equipment.

a country mouse knits a doll

2009-08-28T01:55:00.001-07:00

I bought these 4 little books from the charity shop the other day and they have all been a big hit with Little R. Another big hit with Little R has been her knitted dolly, Mathilda. She asked me out of the blue one day if I would knit a doll for her and helped me choose a book on Amazon with a pattern she liked. The book is Toys To Knit by Tracy Chapman. I knitted the doll for her 4th birthday and I am so pleased and touched that she loves it so much. She plays with it every day and takes it out in the car with her, gives it rides on the back of her bike and tucks it up in a cradle at night. I love that she plays with it but then again, part of me wants to have it sitting up on a very high shelf, away from dirt and any form of danger to her structural integrity. I also knitted a ballet skirt and crocheted some ballet shoes for Mathilda but these were torn off and consigned to the bottom of the toy box. Mathilda will only wear her net tutu for photocalls and conducts daily life wearing merely her wrap cardigan and a pair of pink knickers. Way to go, Mathilda.

a country mouse in the garden

2009-08-28T01:21:00.001-07:00

Hanging out Little R's clothes always reminds me of doing a dolly's washing when I was a wee girl. Unfortunately it all got soaked yesterday. It has rained here every single day this August and although I keep hanging out the washing in a spirit of optimism I am becoming a bit crushed by this.

Speaking of crushed, I found most of the lillies bashed down by last night's wind and rain. I cut the survivors this morning and brought them indoors. It's just as cold in this house as it is outdoors so I think they will be fine. They will probably become cryogenically preserved.

Still, there are lots of plums on the plum tree and the beans are doing well in the rain.

The plum tree is an espalier and needs regular attention, which it doesn't get, to keep its shape. I have netted the bottom half and the birds are welcome to have the high up plums. I apply the same philosophy to the raspberries so we have had some happy and well-fed birds this summer. I should have planted the beans properly in rows but there still seems to be a fairly good crop developing. It shows how effective slapdash gardening can be, so no need for country mouse to change her ways.

a country mouse bakes lemon fairy cakes

2009-08-27T09:52:00.001-07:00

Now that Little R is 4 it is so much easier for me to get a run at making things and with all this rainy weather, cooking and baking in the warm kitchen with Radio 4 in the background is becoming quite addictive. This is the second time I have made these fairy cakes and I plan to make them again tomorrow to take along to my sister's house as she is hosting a joint Pampered Chef/Jamie Oliver cookware party (she is an inveterate multi-tasker) and is expecting a crowd.

The recipe is from this month's Country Homes and Interiors, which I bought by mistake thinking it was Country Living. That will teach me to pay attention as at £3 plus each I can't now justify buying Country Living this month. Oh it's hard being a country mouse.

The recipe is very easy if you have an electric beater. You put 150g of softened lightly salted butter (I used unsalted), 150g caster sugar, 175g self raising flour, 3 medium eggs, 1 tsp vanilla extract and the zest of an unwaxed lemon into a bowl and beat it all up until smooth. Then spoon into paper cases and bake at 180deg (fan) for 20 mins. I found less than 15 minutes was enough. I misread the recipe and added 3 tbsps of lemon juice to the batter when it was meant to go into the icing sugar for the icing at the end but the cakes were really nice with it so I will keep it that way for the future. The lemon icing is 150g icing sugar plus enough lemon juice to make the right consistency. I found that was too much icing as the recipe only made 12 cakes but perhaps I should have spun out the mixture to make 16 cakes as they rose high in the oven and now look like mini iced volcanoes.

I see the photos are in the wrong order again. Next time I will upload in reverse order and hope that works.

The first photo (which obviously should be the last one in the sequence) shows the best bit of the afternoon's activities and my current obsession - hot soapy water with fairy liquid and lots of cloths, sponges and dishwashing brushes. I have stacks of folded knitted cloths. The next exciting instalment of a country mouse writes may even reveal them to the public gaze....

a country mouse cooks sausages

2009-08-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

Continuing my quest to find wholesome dinners that the family will actually eat and that I can cook, I made Made-Up Tuscan Sausage Stew from Fay's Family Food (p.64). I was a fish-eating veggie for nearly twenty years but in recent years I have been eating high-welfare/organic meat on occasion. I feel that cooking for the family would be a lot easier if I just gave in and ate more of it but I am struggling. I keep seeing little animal faces - baaaaaad. Making this sausage stew is an experiment for me in meat-eating as it is made with pork sausages, not my usual Quorn. They are called Debbie and Andrew's sausages and the packet makes a big deal about how well treated the piggies are and how the sausages are made from lean pork shoulder and nothing else, so I am assuming that means no piggy eyelids will be discovered on the plate. We will see at tea time how it goes - it's in the oven cooking as I write.

I modified the recipe slightly in that I put in a bouquet garni instead of a bay leaf and oregano, and I cut up the pepper, onion, carrot and celery very small so that it would go un-noticed. I also added a leek. And, as before, I cooked it all in the big silver frying pan then transferred it at great personal risk to the rectangular casserole dish and covered that with foil as I am not a well-paid actress who writes cookery books (regrettably).

Mmmm, just ate it. Delicioso, as Dora the Explorer would say. I ate the beans and sauce and left the sausages. They were delicioso too but in the end just too porky for a veggie coming slowly down from her high horse. Little R has not touched hers but perhaps today was not a good day to make it as we were at a friend's house today and that friend is a great baker and Little R paid tribute to her skills by scoffing several muffins and gingerbread men. Still, there is plenty left and she will be getting another chance at it tomorrow. The recipe says to add pesto at the end I would say that really makes the dish. I think DH will like it.

a country mouse crochets

2009-08-26T01:41:00.000-07:00

Came across a fantastic book, The Happy Hooker, by Debbie Holler, which has some really unusual crochet patterns. I am a beginner crocheter and am already crocheting my second Garden Scarf (p.96). They are for 2 funky girls, my sister in law and my sister. I like Debbie Holler's approach: instead of teaching each crochet stitch individually she gets you hooked (see what I did there) on a particular pattern then you learn the required stitches as you go along. Through this I have learned single, double, half double and treble crochet. The book also tells you how to block your work and it worked a miracle on my first scarf, which went from a crumpled pile of raggy flowers into something wearable. I'll do a before and after picture when it comes time to block this scarf and you will see the transformation for yourself. I love the process as I have big thing for soap suds and warm water at the moment and it involves soaking, twisting and pummelling your work in soapy water before rinsing and stretching to shape on a drying rack. Very satisfying.

a country mouse shops

2009-08-25T14:02:00.000-07:00

One of the many little things I appreciate about being an at-home mum is the chance to make frequent visits to the wonderful local charity shop. I can't believe what people give away. I have found some beautiful handmade things in the past which have obviously been made with a lot of love and it is so sad to think they have ended up in a cardboard box with a 50p price tag. So that's my excuse for snapping them up and bringing them home to be loved again.

Had great luck today when I was hunting for things with pretty fabric for cutting up at a later date when I learn to use a sewing machine (a current ambition). In the 50p baby-clothes box I found some sweet red gingham (actually Little White Company pyjama trousers - I know, the shop is incredible), a wee top with a strawberry pattern and also some well-worn wooden knitting needles. The plum tree in the garden is laden this year so perhaps I could use the gingham to decorate the forthcoming jars of plum jam and chutney. The strawberry material turned out to be Baby Gap and so I can't quite bring myself to cut it up. It may end up as a dress for Emma, Little R's favourite dolly, and I may reference its origins by splashing out on a red gingham ribbon for the waist to keep it on.

a country mouse cooks dinner

2009-08-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

I bought yet another new cookbook the other day: Fay's Family Food http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=fay%27s+family+food
by Fay Ripley, who used to be in Cold Feet. I justified it to myself because it was reduced to £5 and really after all it's an INVESTMENT in my search for an organised life.

Last night I made Creamy Boursin Salmon Penne (P.183) from the "Don't Panic" section. I ate it and loved it, DH ate it but didn't love it and Little R didn't eat it at all. "Yuck," was her verdict. It involved mixing Greek yoghurt, tomato puree and garlicky soft cheese into a sauce and pouring that over pasta with steamed, flaked salmon and steamed broccoli. My verdict was "Yum" so we'll be having that again and Little R can have a banana.

Tonight I made One Pot Lemon Chicken With Thyme Rice (P.90). I was very attracted by the one-pot notion - Fay advises that you "use your favourite casserole dish"- until I realised that Fay is using one of those fabulous and scarily expensive casserole dishes that can be used on the hob then transferred to the oven and which also look very Jamie Oliverish on your table afterwards. I don't have such a thing. So I cooked it all in my huge silver frying pan then nearly put myself in A&E pouring it into a le Creuset rectangular casserole dish (splash splash OWWW) and covering it with tinfoil. Worked out fine. No need for vast expenditure to be made on kitchenware on http://www.johnlewis.com/, although I did enjoy contemplating that. I loved it, DH ate it without comment and Little R said yuck and ate a banana.