c l u t c h

Family.

Haul.

e g g

I recently finished these two sunny yellow knitting projects. The cardigan I started 3 years ago, but it's taken me this long to have the patience to sew it up. I'm surprised at how I've become so much less ambitious about my knitting without even noticing it. Now I try to minimise all sewing up processes, and also choose very plain and simple shapes. See here my new colour block sweater, which doubles as a fried egg fancy dress costume.

 Then compare the 1940s-inspired cardigan from an old Rowan pattern, which I've in fact made once before in a soft brown with bright blue trim. I do love them both, but they are intricate and time-consuming and this has rather gone by the wayside in my knitting approaches. I think maybe fewer projects with more business in them might be a good shift for a while. To that end, I visited a lovely new knitting shop in Cardiff recently, and I have some ideas that were inspired by the patterns I saw there.

In the mean time, I'm enjoying these beautiful yellow shades, especially for Easter/Passover weekend.

o a t c a k e s

As I start to feel so much better in my head, thanks to having a little less to worry and swirl around in it, I've also this week wanted to get stuck back in on eating healthily and doing some cooking. I've been juicing away, cooking with quinoa (using it up from the cupboard, not to be bought again given concerns over supplies -- pity, as it's very nice), and frying trout. Today I decided to bake some oatcakes, to have an alternative to soup or sandwiches for packed lunches.

First problem encountered -- when I reached for the big bag of oats from the kitchen cupboard, it was an almost empty bag of oats, with a nibble hole and many mouse droppings. Or droplets. They're very tiny. I'm impressed at how many oats they've managed to get through. Doglet and I will be looking out for an army of mice dressed in kilts and white vests, flexing their muscles as they limber up to throw their shotputs. Clever them.

After that it was pretty plain sailing. I used this recipe from Orangette. It's very nice, although perhaps actually a little too indulgent. It involves butter, yoghurt and sugar -- they're very tasty and moreish. But perhaps not so healthy. They're more of a treat oatcake, and not unlike those by Duchy Originals. I think I would like them also a touch more crunchy. I might go back and try the super austere ones in Delia's original cookery course next time, which I remember as having little more than oatmeal and water. They're surprisingly comforting, in a very plain scrubbed face and clean apron kind of way.

Anyway, these are nice for now, and I'm making up some hummous to go on them for lunch tomorrow.  Trying out roasting the garlic to minimise the pungency...

w e e k e n d s

 *1

*2

As part of a concerted effort to reclaim weekends back from work, we went to the Hunterian Art Gallery last Saturday to see the 'This Unrivalled Collection' exhibition, which looked back to Captain John Laskey's first catalogue of the museum in 1813. The rooms were lovely and quiet, beautifully lit with dark red walls and the original early-nineteenth century cases. A motley collection of things with my favourites being some of the old typefaces, coins, and natural history illustrations. Less lovely but still grimly fascinating was the stuffed sloth and the enormous clam shell, that made me feel queasy about what the clam must have looked like (a couple of feet across).

On Sunday we went to see the new Ken Loach film, 'Spirit of 45', which is a documentary about the beginning of the welfare state, NHS, and nationalisation of various industries. Since the last part had to be about the systematic dismantling of such things, it was very depressing. Some of the earlier footage was great though, the voices beautiful and so were the ideas of an economy driven not by profit but by collective need. I won't say more because the gulf is so wide between that and George Osborne and it's just too painful to contemplate. But it was a warm film; a populist variation on the Luke Fowler film. [Still from the film comes from here.]

*1 Mask brought back [looted] by Captain Cook from the Society Islands, Tahiti c.1770
*2 Morpho butterfly from William Hunter collection, c. 1780