Playing in..

It has been too windy for gardening the last two days so, at long last, there has been an excuse to stay in between dog walks.

In a fit of enthusiasm, on the first day of indoor weather I mopped and polished the kitchen floor. I later took Lyra for a muddy walk in the rain and followed that up with some floury baking so we have returned to square one. There is an unpleasant mobius strip like quality to housework…. I am therefore carefully averting my eyes from any other overdue household tasks. Once bitten!

As the rhubarb has gone feral, I wrestled the forcer off yesterday and set to using up a few of the giant stalks with a crumble, a tart (recipe now loaded onto the recipe blog on the site homepage) and a rhubarb and custard cake of my own devising (not quite right, but tasty enough – it has matured well overnight). With the risk of visitors low, I happily bopped along to poppy tunes on Radio 2 whilst baking, throwing some excellent shapes between chilling, rolling and decorating. The dog occasionally opened one eye and rolled it witheringly. When Keith came to take over and make dinner last night the kitchen soundtrack was firmly switched over to Radio 3 and he sang along to Zadok the Priest to the dog’s continued and evident disgust. Perhaps she prefers jazz.

Keith has made further inroads with the rhubarb today. There is a vat of chutney on the hob seething noisily. Rhubarb gin production has also commenced. I’m not a huge fan of the rhubarb chutney, but the gin is a project I can fully get behind.

Today I felt the urge for handicrafts. After Lyra’s morning walk I scooted off to my garret with good intentions regarding the making of a Waistcoat With Useful Pockets. Lyra, however, seized that moment to jink past Keith and make a run for the the field to chat up the cows. Having wrestled her back and done his back in in the process, Keith deposited Lyra with me in disgrace. She spent the next hour worrying the hell out of a bag of scraps and generally causing mayhem until I firmly returned her to uncle Keith to pursue her research into the secrets of chutney production.

In the eerie silence that ensued productivity was high. I converted one of last week’s Guardians into a paper pattern for a WWUP (Authors note: the FT is better for this – much bigger – also fabulous as a firelighter – but with the work commute ended my supplies have run out. Would it be frivolous to keep getting the FT just for the two or three columns I like and these excellent secondary uses I wonder??). For good measure I also started working a the buttonhole band onto the much abandoned green cardi. (This is beyond any shadow of doubt the worst bit – all stopping and starting – so I leavened the lump with Marion Keyes’ “The Break” on audio book – which I am enjoying so far. ). If the windy weather continues for a bit I might just get one of these projects finished!