mumblings

As soon as I got home from Broadstairs I picked up my needles, the lovely Rowan Cashsoft Aran I was given as a anniversary gift by pao and started knitting this February Lady. It was quick going and addictive and I enjoyed knitting it. It was only when I’d finished the body and was halfway down one of the sleeves that I realised that I had been knitting with two different needle sizes. I told myself at that point it was a design feature rather than a failure as there was no way I was going to rip it all out.

I’d been knitting quite a bit at my desk at home on which some vintage buttons by Lionel Nichols were sitting on and I thought they would make a nice contrast so I took the plunge and sewed them on.

I’ve really enjoyed the roses in my garden this year and here are two of the last ones in an old teapot I picked up at an antiques fair last year.

The kittens are keeping themselves busy although the lure of the knitting does call to them from time to time.

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Thank you very much for all of your lovely kind words about Merlin. It has been a very hard time and very sad too so blogging has fallen by the wayside a bit. I thought it would be nice to share some lovely joy now and here is a lovely package friends Chris and Jeanne sent for my birthday. Thanks, Chris and Jeanne – you’ve really brightened up a very bleak time.

Lovely yarn, a light-hearted book (already devoured), a stitch marker (always handy) and a HUGE bag of Bugles. Joyous

Sirius has been doing his bit to cheer us up by doing some amateur acrobatics. Here he is at the top of the doorframe chasing spiders.

He’s a funny boy.

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Merlin was put to sleep just before 11 this morning. He was purring right up until the end and the vet said that he had had a massive tumour on his liver. I will miss him

but pao will miss him the most as he was pao’s cat. Merlin made it very clear which one of us he preferred and if he had a choice he would choose pao’s lap to sit on.

He was pretty grumpy and not really much of a knit-wear model but this photo of him wearing a preemie hat is certainly a one-off.

He was a champion sleeper and he loved lying next to you when you were in bed. If you went up to bed, he’d be there ready to sleep purring away. He had such a deep purr it would send you off to sleep. pao has been known to have had to have the odd afternoon off work because Merlin had purred and sent him off to sleep. He was a good companion when you were feeling low or ill because he would lie on the bed with you for hours and hours.

Merlin and Ophelia came together and it is sad that both of them died this year together. Merlin started to look a lot older right after Ophelia died in March. This photo was taken just before the cancer really started to affect him taken in early July. We never imagined that just a month later we would be saying goodbye.

Merlin spent a lot of time at the vet and much of his life with us with a lampshade on his head. It was amazing as we thought he was going to die a lot sooner but his stubbornness meant we got three years longer than we imagined as he was diagnosed with a tumour back then. Even this morning, he was fighting not to get in his basket even though he was quite tired. He let me hold him which was quite rare and carry him home from where he wandered to last night. For his vet, it is a double tragedy as Merlin was a favourite patient but please keep him and his wife in your thoughts and prayers as his only son died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage last Thursday. We were all crying.

This is how I’ll remember him in this photo pao took of him. Lying in the garden, basking in the sun.

Good night, Merlin.

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Happy Birthday, Sirius! One year old today Is he still a kitten or does turning one making him a cat?

Discuss.

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We walked up some steps near the harbour in Broadstairs to take a look in at a tiny gallery. This made me smile as I was reminded of the Bocca della Verità in Rome.

I was graciously allowed to take some photos of my own which was nice.

I really like this one.

I am really pleased as I have now finished my Stormwater Shawl – yay – but I wasn’t organised enough to take it to the seaside with me. Maybe next time

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pao took me to Broadstairs where we went on our first date for our wedding anniversary and we just chilled out on the beach with a picnic then went on one of our favourite activities

exploring the Albion secondhand bookshop. You never know what you’ll find as there always seems to be new stuff.

It was also really good to get to see the new yarn store that my GP and I had been chatting about C Wool.

It seemed like a very happy friendly place

complete with parking spot

for patient spouses. It turned out that they were having a sale so I was given some yarn as an anniversary gift. The owner was really friendly and used to be a Rowan consultant so it was nice that there was someone knowledge on hand too.

9 years of marriage – that’s almost a life-time, isn’t it?

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Sooooo, I kind of went a bit AWOL there. Sorry for that – it’s been a difficult time but I won’t go into that. Instead it is time for a Saturday morning bullet post.

• Slipped discs. Part of my AWOL-ness is because pao has slipped a disc and it is dreadful pain. Another couple of friends who have had this have told me it is VERY VERY painful. Mostly pao has been going to work as much as he can as per doctor’s instructions but it is not good.
• Knitting. We went to C Wool in Broadstairs (more on that in another post with photos as it is a very very nice shop) on our wedding anniversary and I scored some half price Rowan Cashsoft Aran gifted me by pao and his nan. I’ve been knitting a February Lady – I love this pattern and have been glued to my needles.
• Knitting again. I knitted like mad and finished my Stormwater Shawl (pics to follow once I’ve blocked it)
• Baking/cooking. I’ve committed myself to make a friend’s daughter’s wedding cake. (Yes, I am a crazy lady) In order to do this, I’ve got to empty the freezers out to make room for the cupcake containers which are going to contain the wedding cakelets. My friend and I have been scouring ebay for a suitable stand and finally scored one this week for a reasonable price. Yay!
• Gardening (definitely needs a post of its own). There has been a lot of heat-sapping HOT sun (yes, HOT sun has been felt in the UK – now we all need a collective lie down due to accompanying humidity) which makes things grow like crazy so have been busy pinching out etc.
• Reading. pao and I are part of a book club and we are really Yes, Man by Danny Wallace this month. I haven’t actually started it yet because I’ve been distracted by The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson – that is one great book so far. pao has already read all three books in his Millennium trilogy. I’ve been reading it slowly, enjoying it but I’d better get on and read the book group book as pao will want it soon so he can read it in time.
• Kittens. It is very hard to take yourself seriously when you have kittens. Tamyra is extremely loving and will sit on your lap and purr at you for hours at a time. Sirius has been pouncing kung-fu style so it is hard to be too sad when that pair are around.

Any how, even though it is Saturday. I’m up early ready to get busy again.

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pao very kindly made me a birthday cake for today

It is his first ever birthday cake so he did not have the intimate understanding of our oven that I have so I had to nip in and help him out a bit.

Cake overflow indicated that the final product would be delicious.

Some careful cutting

meant that the cake also looked beautiful

and ready for beautiful icing.

Thank you, pao, for such a wonderful cake!

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I was inspired by Rachel Eats to try making some pasticcini di mandorlo. They remind me of the ricciarelli my student days in Siena – a bit of a sad time as my mother had died earlier in the year but also full of good memories of big church meals together on Sundays and contrade parades. There was a shop on the Via di Citta where I lived the first month which sold these and I remember my first taste of these and marvelling at how different they were from the kinds of biscuits we had in England. Nowadays, we do have them almost readily available here in the UK but it was nice to find a recipe to make them myself and re-create that heady smell of cooking almonds in the house.

Here is my take on her recipe:

300g ground almonds
200g icing sugar (plus more for dusting and rolling out)
2 eggs
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp Amaretto Disaronno
Flaked almonds to decorate

Preheat oven to 180C.

Mix ground almonds, sugar, eggs, lemon zest and Amaretto together in a bowl. With your hands covered in icing sugar, roll out mix into balls.

Press an indent into each ball and place a flaked almond into the indent.

Bake in oven for about 15 minutes until brown.

Rachel says they should keep in an airtight tin for a few weeks but round here a few days will suffice

particularly when there are kittens who might be really attracted to the mix.

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(adapted from Banana Bread in How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson)

175g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
150g caster sugar
125g margarine
2 eggs
1 tsbp Southern Comfort
60g pecans, chopped
3 or 4 bananas crushed (about 300g)

Mix together flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder together.
In a separate bowl, cream together sugar and margarine until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Add pecans and stir in bananas and Southern Comfort. Add flour mix a third at a time and spoon into loaf tins lined with baking parchment or nifty liners like the ones I buy from Lakeland.

Bake in oven for an hour or until tester comes out clean.

Prevent greedy little kittens from scoffing the lot in one go.

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