Tag Archives: apple crumble

I Plod my Weary Way…

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The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
         The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
         And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Thomas Grey, Elegy in a Country Churchyard, but I expect you knew that.
It’s the first day of meteorological Spring today, and so it will be no surprise to learn that it was a foggy day with a lot of moisture in the air. If you’d simply plonked me down after six months in isolation I could probably have guessed it was Spring from the flowers, but the rest of it was very much like November, even the temperature.
Two days of Spring, then bang, it’s like a shutter coming down. Spring is over and autumn has returned.
However, it’s not all bad news. I have the day to myself and Julia made enough apple crumble for last night to provide a couple of generous portions tonight.
I’ve been watching the trailer for the Oprah interview with Megan and Harry. Speculation is rife. However, Julia is unimpressed by any of it and all it does is for me is bring out my regicidal tendencies. I have no faith in Republics, where the children of privilege rise to the top by money rather than merit, so we may as well keep our own system where we are governed by the children of privilege who went to Oxford University. However, the execution of Charles I did lead to the royals upping their game, and it’s probably about time to kill another one.
Looks like Charles is going to have to take one for the team, with Andrew as collateral damage, which will solve a few problems. I’d throw in Harry too. Now that William has kids Harry is irrelevant, something that he has failed to grasp.
I don’t know any Royals personally and have never studied them in depth, so I won’t say more, but I do think idea has some merit.
With a bit of thought I’m sure we could open it up to include celebrities and a public vote…
Meanwhile, back in reality, the header picture is Southwell and the pub at the end of the street is The Saracen’s Head. I suspect it will be renamed at some time in the future. On 5th May 1647 King Charles I stayed there and surrendered to the Scots, who were part of an army besieging Newark. The Scots, acting true to their reputation for frugality, sold him to Cromwell.

An Excellent Apple Crumble and an Amusing Book

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Today started reasonably well and has ended up not being too bad.

That’s probably not the most inspiring opening, but it’s a fair summary. I have managed to get another submission done, have polished up a few bits for another one, tries writing a new form and still had time to cook.

We had shop-bought fishcakes tonight, with roasted cauliflower and cheese sauce (using the remains of the cheese sauce from yesterday’s Welsh Rarebit), potato wedges and sweetcorn. It was tasty, reasonably nutritious, and beige. I didn’t photograph it because the light golden brown fishcakes were the most colourful bit. The sweetcorn had faded to magnolia (it was half a tin left over from the fish pie), the cauli was off white and the sauce was made with white cheese and Dijon mustard, so was light beige.  It would not have looked good on film.

After that we had apple crumble, which is basically a beige topping on a magnolia base. Again, tasty but uninspiring in a photographic sense.

Apart from that, it snowed. Several times. There wasn’t much but as it fell on frozen snow we could have done without it.

I’m sure other things happened in between, but I’m having trouble recalling them. All I want is another 41 words and I can sign this off and go to bed. Then, later in the week, I can have  another blood test. The amount they have been tapping off recently you’d think I was made of the stuff.

Number One Son bought me a book club subscription for Christmas and the first one just arrived – The Diary of a Nobody. If I believed in fate anything like that, I’d think this was a message from a higher power. I am reading a chapter a night and picking up a few tips on diary writing as I go along.

 

 

A Cupboard Full of Treasure

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I have just been rooting through a kitchen cupboard. It’s one I don’t often use as it’s awkward for me to reach. It’s awkward for Julia to reach too, but about a year ago she stood on a chair and rearranged it. She does this sometimes. Usually when I am out.

Tonight, whilst waiting for pasta to boil, I decided to have a quick look through the cupboard. It contains mainly pulses and such stuff and I thought it would be good to have a look through with a view to using some up.

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Pasta Bake

Imagine my surprise on moving the first few packets, to find that we had an unopened pack of spaghetti in there. Treasure indeed, in these times of shortage. And behind the cous cous and quinoa, I unearthed a pack of organic oats. Again, in these days of porridge shortages, this was like finding a bag of gold. Well, not quite. If I found 500 grams of gold instead of the oats. I’d probably have reacted in a slightly more enthusiastic manner.

Yes, I admit, I did say cous cous and quinoa. I bought them a few months ago to make healthy lunchtime salads but haven’t quite weaned myself off cheese and pickle sandwiches.

I also found two tins of chopped tomatoes and two more of chick peas plus a bag of pudding rice. This is all stuff you can no longer find on supermarket shelves. I never thought I’d be glad that I have a wife with squirrel DNA but her habit of hiding things seems to have paid off this time.

So, all is right with the world. We have bonus food for several meals and there is a pasta bake in the oven. I will take a picture when I take it out.

After that we will be having apple crumble. I’ll take a picture of that too.

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Apple crumble with cream – delicious

All in all, things could be a lot worse.

Another quick post

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Sorry about the lack of application but I’ve had another action-packed day.

First off, a lie in, followed by a late breakfast of sausage, bacon, beans and potato cakes. It was an excellent breakfast cooked by my dear, kind wife.

I feel I have to call her that because (a) she is dear to me (b) she is very kind and (c) she is still grumbling that I forced her out of bed to make me breakfast. It was 14 hours ago, can she not forget?

I’m arranging breakfast tomorrow. McDonald’s, eaten in the car on the way to work. We can pretend we’re high-powered executives.

Next, we went to Men in Sheds to have hot cross buns with the old codgers. They are looking forward to Spring. Julia has been hatching plots and extracting help and equipment for the MENCAP garden. We heard the tractor running and watched the plough go up and down on the newly repaired hydraulics.

I didn’t take any pictures because I was feeling miserable and in pain. It was, I suspect, a combination of too much walking the night before, and the thought of returning to the farm.

Whatever it was, a couple of hours later I was feeling much perkier and navigating my way round a bookshop. I have a new Janet Evanovich whodunit to read and a book about Great War tanks. I’m being very careful about book buying these days, as I’m still giving bags of them to charity, and I want to make sure I’m giving more away than I buy.

Finally, we met up for a family meal as my uncle and two of my cousins were down in Peterborough visiting my Dad. It was a convivial party, ending with the male faction taking on the pudding menu as the female contingent looked on and thought virtuous thoughts.

Uncle Tom tried the Gin and Tonic trifle and the rest of us stuck to apple crumbles. The apple crumble was excellent. The trifle, we were told, picked up towards the bottom half. That would be the half with the gin-soaked sponge…