Fleeting archaeology

In between the old plaster coming off and the new lime render going on, we get a brief glimpse which shows that my house did in fact used to be pink once upon a time...

Am very much looking forward to how much cooler it should be this summer now that it will be insulated -- this room has been quite the oven on a sunny summer day...

Handlebars...

Went down to Cardiff on Saturday to get mudguards put on my bike -- despite what the website said, they were NOT easy to fit one's self!  Now I just need it to rain - which it might to towards the end of the week...

And I also discovered that I can't raise my existing handlebars any higher, so the guy in the shop suggested a buy a new bike...  :(  Or I could just get upright handlebars?  Thoughts?

Defiance Bike Ride

I've been riding to work for nearly a year now -- through rain, sleet, hail (painful!), frost, wind, and occasionally sunshine -- but have never done a longer ride.  Few weeks ago I did 30 miles as part of the Defiance Cycle Ride and am pleased to report that my legs didn't ache afterwards at all -- a year ago that would have been unthinkable!  So a big thank you again to all the residents of Amsterdam who inspired me to get on my bike...!

Am going down to Cyclopaedia tomorrow to get some work done on my bike so my ride into work on Monday should be better than ever...

Controlling the Mind

"People say: 'One can't help one's thoughts.' But one can.  The control of the thinking machine is perfectly possible.  And since nothing whatever happens to us outside our own brain; since nothing hurts us or gives us pleasure except within the brain the supreme importance of being able to control what goes on in that mysterious brain is patent.  This idea is one of the oldest platitudes, but is it is a platitude whose profound truth and urgency most people live and die without realising.  People complain of the lack of power to concentrate, not witting that they may acquire the power, if they choose.

"And without the power to concentrate -- that is to say, without the power to dictate to the brain its task and to ensure obedience -- true life is impossible.  Mind control is the first element of a full existence.

"Hence, it seems to me, the first business of the day should be to put the mind through its paces.  You look after your body, inside and out; you run grave danger in hacking hairs off your skin; you employ a whole army of individuals, from the milkman to the pig-killer, to enable you to bribe your stomach into decent behaviour.  Why not devote a little attention to the far more delicate machinery of the mind, especially as you will require no extraneous aid?  It is for this portion of the art and craft of living that I have reserved the time from the moment of quitting your door to the moment of arriving at your office.

"'What? I am to cultivate my mind in the street, on the platform, in the train, and in the crowded street again?'  Precisely.  Nothing simpler!  No tools required!  Not even a book.  Nevertheless, the affair is not easy.

"When you leave your house, concentrate your mind on a subject (no matter what, to begin with).  You will not have gone ten yards before your mind has skipped away under your very eyes and is larking round the corner with another subject.

"Bring it back by the scruff of the neck.  Ere you have reached the station you will have brought it back about forty times.  Do not despair.  Continue.  Keep it up.  You will succeed.  You cannot by any chance fail if you persevere."

Bennett, A. (1959). Controlling the Mind. In How to live on 24 hours a day (pp. 54-56). Kingswood, Surrey: World's Work.

Be happy, it's Adar!

I made these with wholemeal flour this year instead of white, and there is so much fat in them that they are still ridiculously indulgent, but you end up eating them four at a time rather than six at a time, so...  :)

This is something that I salvaged from the photography department at Tisch School of the Arts when I took Dave there in August 2013 to see where I'd grown up -- and I was horrified to see it in a skip -- so Dave had this lovely wooden box made for it for me for Valentine's Day, and then he fitted it out with a bulb this morning....  Happy!

And thank god it's not the '70s any more!  :)

Bar Mitts

Just realised that I never reported back about the bar mitts -- so for all those of you waiting with baited breath (which is probably nobody...) they are brilliant.  I wear them with just a pair of thin Merino wool glove liners underneath, and they have kept my hands from feeling pain through -4C starts...  My old motorcycle gloves have now gone to the charity shop...!

AND, failed to take a picture of this, but I dried my sheets on the line outside today, which must mean, despite there being ice on the line when I first put them out this morning, that spring is on the way!  Yippee!

Sunset

The view out the bathroom window as I was sorting the laundry earlier:

More winter salads

Haven't quite got where I want to be with it totally yet, but my mayonnaise is improving...

And I then used it to make this version of a heartier celeriac remoulade with hard boiled eggs...

Brawn

From this:

To this:

Yummy!  :)

I want to make a piece of jewellery or something out of this tag -- any ideas anybody?

Snow!

Yes, that is indeed snow you see there on the skylight in my kitchen... Snowed a bit this morning, then it all melted, and then it snowed a bit more again this afternoon.  Biking home this evening was okay as long as I stayed in the tyre tracks, but there's more snow forecast overnight and should be right around freezing when it's time to go to work tomorrow so I might be walking for a change!

Cheery winter food

One thing I miss in the winter is lovely fresh salads -- particularly anything with tomatoes and cucumbers...  So, a winter salad -- carrot and beetroot salad with ginger, and accompanied with some lovely honey smoked ham...

Taking pictures indoors under modern compact fluorescent bulbs is not the easiest thing -- this salad really looks much more jewel-toned in reality...  But it's dark out now, and I'm leaving the house in the morning to go to work before it gets light out, and then my salad will get eaten at lunchtime, so...  :)

Dwylo Oer

Well, hardening the fuck up didn't work, so we move on to...

Without:

And with:

Should probably go for a ride now to try them out but it's dark and cold and wet and I've already had waterproofs on once today, so...  Will see how it goes in the morning...  Am mainly worried about not having enough manoeuvrability to change gears comfortably...  Fingers crossed...

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know it's not until tomorrow, but as I don't have the day off work here, this seemed as good a time as any to make my pumpkin pie!  In past years I've made pumpkin pie actually from pumpkin (I know...) as you can't get tins here, but Dave and I were in Cardiff a few months back and found this shop that sold tinned pumpkin so Dave bought me two tins at an exorbitant price...

I therefore had to use the recipe on the back of the tin, but made a few changes: The crust I obviously had to make from scratch as I've never seen frozen crusts here like you can get in the States.  I tried a new technique from Hugh FW who admits that he nicked it off Elizabeth David -- instead of rolling out the crust (which I hate doing) you just press it into the plate -- and it worked!  Wouldn't work for a top crust obviously, but for something like this...

Duck eggs (from Bridget) instead of hen.  Cinnamon and cloves ground from whole so fresher and more flavourful.  Couldn't get evaporated milk so made my own by simmering twice the quantity I needed for much longer than the internet recipes say it takes until it reduced...  And it is SO yummy!!!  How long will it take me to eat the whole pie???

In various other news, we decanted some of the apple brandy -- and that's yummy too!

First frost Sunday night -- good thing we pulled the last of the root veg out beforehand!

I also made some lovely mayonnaise this evening with a duck egg yolk, Blodyn Aur rapeseed oil, and some mustard which is giving it that lovely colour -- delicious with the leftover roast chicken that I made on Sunday to go with the veg!

And of course, waste not, want not -- I've also got a lovely chicken broth out of it which will be the base of all sorts of future meals...

Mystery vegetable of the day...

Before I get to last night's supper and the mystery vegetable of the week...

I had one of these the other week, and I photographed it and meant to post it here, but can see that I didn't, and no idea where the photo went to...  But handily, I had another one yesterday morning!  I know I've had plenty of double-yolked chicken eggs in the past (must be jinxed on the photo front this morning because I've just gone trawling through the blog looking for an old photo of a double-yolked chicken egg and can't find one!!!), but has anybody ever seen a double-yolked duck egg before?  They can't be that uncommon if I've had two in the last month or so...

This one you have to look really hard at -- but see the rainbow in the middle of the cloud?  Was walking up the bridge yesterday morning when I spotted this -- beautiful weather, unseasonably mild, blue skies with the occasional fluffy white cloud -- not really where you expect to see rainbows, is it?!

And now for the veg -- can you guess what it is?  This is fresh out of the ground (after I washed the soil off):

Then they've been boiled and skinned just like I'd do with their more conventional cousins...

And this is what I did with them -- it's sort of a take on borscht, but made with cod (caught yesterday morning in Burry Port) instead of beef, and then because I've got this lovely albino beetroot (yes, you heard right -- tastes like beetroot but doesn't bleed red everywhere!) I put that in and I used the tops as well instead of cabbage -- yum!

Halloween

Totally random autumn -- I'm wearing short sleeves today is how mild it is, but now that the clocks have gone back, I'm cycling home in the dark -- which is surprisingly exhilarating!  Lovely autumn food, although it's not really cold enough for it...  Freshly popped corn...

...and yummy sausages and roasted butter-nut squash...

Might treat myself to some Candy Corn this weekend if I can find such a thing for sale in Carmarthen!

Y Newyddion

I don't normally read newspapers, but I bought one yesterday and just wanted to share these two things that made me laugh out loud:

1.

2.  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/19/ebola-america-fear-barack-obama-virus

Y Canol

My snazzy new dynamo has been slipping in the rain, and my wheel has been out of true since day one -- so I decided to have a go a truing my wheel in the hope that it would stop the dynamo slipping...  If this works, I owe you a pint hairy American dude!

However, easier said than done...

The theory works if you know that your brake pads are straight and centred - but what if they're not?  In the end, I just aligned the wheel to the dynamo, so it's a straighter wheel now, but not necessarily a centred one!  There's plenty of rain in the forecast though, so we'll find out if it worked soon enough...

Ar werth...

The things that you find when you're having a tidy-up -- we all own far too much stuff, and it clutters up our minds as well as our houses...

Bwyd...

So these are black radishes that I planted -- completely different to salad radishes.  These ones are quite small but they are just my thinnings, so they will get bigger.  They need to be cooked, and you see them here with my turnip thinnings -- quite nice really!

Yummy yummy challah which is always gone too soon!  L'shanah tovah!

And Sunday dinner with Dave's lovely baby carrots -- and boy were they carrot-y!

Bwyd

Who needs Tesco when I have...

...blackberries from Rea:

...runner beans from Gerry:

...eggs from Bridget:

...parsnip wine from D:

...apple sauce from Arriva Trains Wales:

...and baby root veg from my own garden!