MOOCHING ABOUT IN THE BLOGOSPHERE EARLY THIS MORNING I stumbled across this wonderful newish website called TwitterLit. It is just what every voracious reader will enjoy, and a terrible time waster, but on the other hand, as a result of reading the first lines I have added six books to my "Must Read" list. Try it out, you'll love it too....

READING:

Yesterday I fancied reading something undemanding, and picked up Joanna Trollope's latest book ‘Second Honeymoon’. Actually it sounds rather disparaging to call it ‘undemanding’ as although it was not a difficult read it was by no means the sort of book that some critics refer to patronisingly as “women’s fiction”.

Edie, the fifty-plus protagonist is an actress and mother of three grown-up children, the youngest of whom, Ben, has just left home aged 22 to live with his girlfriend. Edie feels totally bereft by his departure and desparately wants him to come back, whereas her husband Russell is looking forward to having her to himself again after so many years. Whilst struggling to come to terms with this new stage of her life, Edie auditions for one of the main roles in an avante-garde production of a play by Ibsen, and to her surprise gets the part. She starts “mothering“ Lazlo the young unknown actor who is playing the part of her son, and as he is in need of somewhere to live, she invites him to lodge with her and Russell. At the same time, her eldest son Matthew breaks up with his financially successful and ambitious girlfriend Ruth, and returns to live at home for a while; no sooner has that happened than her daughter Rosa loses her job, and after a few weeks living with Edie’s sister, she too returns home. Finally Ben her youngest moves back, but as the house is full he has to doss on the sofa. Edie has got what she wanted, her children back under her roof, but it is nothing like she expected to be. They are all adults now, with lives of their own; she becomes increasingly frustrated and exhausted trying to manage her own life in the theatre, and keep the household running with some semblance of order. Slowly she comes to realise that she actually wants to let them go.

Trollope is particularly good at the nuances of family relationships and I really empathised with Edie; being of the same age, having one adult child who left home and then after some years has come back to live with us just at the moment when my DH and I were planning to move to a smaller home, I could feel how emotionally torn she was.Two of the most interesting minor characters in the book are Ruth, Matthew’s high flying girlfriend, and Rosa’s best friend Kate who has just had a baby. Trollope cleverly juxtaposes the alpha and omega of motherhood, from the beginning when a baby requires constant mothering, to the stage where the day-to-day care of a mother is no longer needed or wanted, and how hard it is for women to adjust to both stages.

A much grittier, more complex book than earlier books by Joanna Trollope, and not an Aga in sight.

RANTING;

Holy Smoke! Can you believe it - this Nanny state has legislated that
Churches and Cathedrals should display a big notice on their doors to say that smoking is forbidden in the said Church or Cathedral. Oh, and by the way, this crazy piece of legislation also applies to Synagogues, Hindu Temples, Mosques and other places of religious worship.

Why? When did you last see anyone light up a ciggie in church?(or synagogue, temple, mosque etc) Yes, you are correct, you have NEVER seen anyone smoking in church. So why do they need the signs?
Jobsworth at the various Local Authorities I asked said " it will be against the law, and so people must be informed" and those responsible for places of religious worship have been told they will be prosecuted if they don't put such signs up.
What a weird world Nu Labour has inflicted on us; signs on the doors of churches (cathedrals, temples,, synagogues, mosques etc) telling people that they may not smoke within, WHEN NOBODY EVER DID SO WITHIN LIVING MEMORY.

Hang on a minute - murder is against the law and the churches (cathedrals, temples, syn...oh for heavens sake you know the places) do not have big signs on their doors banning murder on the premises. Nor do they have signs listing all the other legal prohibitions that may not take place on the premises; there would be very, very long lists pinned to church doors if they applied the same logic as they have done to the smoking ban.

Call me a cynical old bat if you like (but not to my face please), but I sense a job-creation scheme going on; this will create a whole new tier of local council employees all self-righteously checking out that the notices are in place and getting paid for so doing , paid with OUR money.

I should just add, that I don't smoke, I don't like being in smoky places, and I hardly ever go to church - but I just think this whole nonsense is symtomatic of a society that is being overly regulated ; and I wish I had shares in some of the companies making mega-bucks from producing all these bloody signs.

RECIPE:

I have never understood people who use packet cake mixes - so if you are one of them forgive me if I seem rude, but What Is the Point??? I have a girlfriend who always used a pack of Betty Crocker when making her children's birthday cakes, for some reason I was too polite to ask her why she didn't just make a cake in the normal way. A "real" homemade cake takes as little time to make as a packet mix, by the time you've added all the things the manufacturers ask for; and the actual success or failure of the cake will be determined by the oven temperature, timing etc. The chocolate cake recipe below is tried and tested. I must have made it 30-40 times and it is consistantly good. It takes less than 20 minutes to make (not including baking time). So an hour after you have a yen for a choccy cake you can have one, freshly made and iced, how difficult is that?

I have made this cake over and over again, for school fetes, for birthdays, anniversaries, sales-of-work, charity sales etc, etc; so when new neighbours moved into the house next door at the weekend, what could be a more perfect welcome presentation than a chocolate cake and a bottle of champers!

FAVOURITE QUICK CHOCOLATE CAKE

Grease and base line 2 x 18cm sponge tins
Pre-heat oven to 180°C

115g caster sugar
115g soft margarine
115g self-raising flour
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules
4 tablespoons hot water

Put the flour, sugar, margarine, both eggs and the baking powder together in a mixing bowl.
In a cup mix together the cocoa, coffee and hot water so they become a sloppy paste.
Add the cocoa mix to the other ingredients in the mixing bowl.
Beat all together with an electric mixer for a minute or so until they are well mixed and of a soft dropping consistency.
Divide the cake mix evenly between the two prepared tins, spreading it out so the edges are slightly higher than the centre.
Rap each tin on the work surface to remove any large air bubbles, and then bake on the centre shelf of the preheated oven for between 18 -25 minutes until the cakes are shrinking from the sides of the tins, and the centre is firm and slightly springy to touch.
Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack whilst making the icing.

FUDGY CHOCOLATE ICING

85g icing sugar 30g cocoa powder
55g caster sugar 45g soft margarine 2 tablespoons water

Sieve the icing sugar and cocoa powder together into a bowl.
Put the caster sugar, margarine and water together into a small saucepan, and heat until the sugar is dissolved and the margarine is melted, then bring to a boil, boil for a minute and remove from the heat.
Pour the margarine, sugar, water mixture onto the icing sugar and stir together and then beat hard until smooth and beginning to thicken.

Place one of the cakes on a serving plate (upper side downward) and spread icing over it. Cover with the second cake, and spread the remaining icing evenly over the top. If the icing is firming up too rapidly, dip a knife in hot water and use that to spread it smoothly. Decorate as wished.

USE IT UP, WEAR IT OUT, MAKE IT DO, OR DO WITHOUT... I'm tightening my belt in March.

READING:
You and I , dear blog reader, are very fortunate, we have our sight so we are able to read the printed word - indeed you are reading this post. In the past three years I have had some serious problems with my left eye resulting in several operations which have saved my sight and for that I am very, very grateful. To be unable to read is one of the things I most dread, so when I came upon this piece written on Dovegreyreader's blog it went straight to my heart:

My name is Clare Gailans. I am totally blind and have used braille as my means of literacy since starting school at five, that's to say for over 40 years. I have always told people what a wonderful system braille is, and had imagined it would always be offered to those who need to use it to read. Technology makes it very much quicker to produce now, and the Disability Discrimination Act requires information to be produced in it if it is the most appropriate format for the recipient.
This is all very well for us adults, but it is becoming clear that shortages of qualified personnel, money, or perhaps just plain arrogance, are creating a situation in many mainstream schools where blind children are not taught braille, and those with useful sight are often denied it until their sight has further deteriorated. By this time many of them already hate reading, which is a huge extra strain on them throughout the school day - a stressful time for many children at the best of times.

Apart from the people close to me, books are my first love and I came to them through braille. Books can be listened to with enjoyment, but this is not literacy. I could not have enjoyed sharing my love of books with others through email, or made virtual friends with so many lovers of books such as Lynne, without being able to write, spell and punctuate. Listening to voices as a poor second to literacy would not have taught me these things.
Without first learning to read words I could not have mastered music through braille notation, which has been the key to my employment for the past 25 years, and my obtaining a degree in music from Cambridge before that. Braille has also been the difference for my husband and me, through such activities as music and chess, between being merely tolerated in the sighted community and being fully accepted, indeed sometimes looked up to, for our contributions.
It has helped me in a variety of voluntary activities, and to instil a love of reading in our two sighted children. I could not run our household efficiently witout it, in every department from cooking to labelling the many reams of paper which have to be filed, and which without braille would all feel identical."
There is an online petitionto ask the government to make the teaching of braille available for all blind and partially sighted people which I have signed - it can be signed by any UK citizens and I sincerely hope you will consider doing so. As tomorrow is World Book Day it seemed particularly appropriate to consider how much the ability to read means to me, rather than to talk about a particular book.

RANTING:
No music on a summers evening at Kenwood this year. Well I can’t say I mind too much, over the past few years the summer concerts have become just big noisy overblown events that we no longer attend.

For 55 years there have been outdoor musical concerts by the lake at Kenwood House, a beautiful neo-classical house on the northern slopes of Hampstead Heath in north London. As we live fairly close by, my DH and I, our children, friends and neighbours used to go to one or two concerts each season; we’d pack a picnic, several bottles of wine, some rugs, cushions, and black bin liners (in case the weather turned wet) and troop off to lie on the grass with other north Londoners and enjoy the music which was always of a very high standard. One or two of the concerts each year would end with a firework display.

Then, some years ago, English Heritage took over the management of Kenwood House and its grounds. Tents selling various overpriced drinks started appearing on either side of the grassy slope where most people sat and picnicked. The ticket prices went up steeply. The concerts started to have fireworks more frequently. From being concerts of classical or chamber music with the occasional foray into opera or jazz, they became more populist. Last season had, amongst other delights, Art Garfunkel and His Band, Sinatra Under The Stars, The Time of Your Life – The Music of Dirty Dancing, The Four Seasons, Dancing in the Streets - The Music of Motown. Corporate Hospitality tents sprang up to enable businesses to entertain their clients at the concerts. As if that were not enough, the concerts started being advertised very widely, and coach loads of visitors came from as far afield as Guildford and Milton Keynes. In the past few years English Heritage has been selling 10,000 tickets for every concert. Ten thousand people at Kenwood – it was getting ridiculous - far, far too many; they usually came by car, and the streets on all sides of the Heath were clogged with traffic and people trying to park. To match the expectations of audiences paying the higher ticket prices, and coming from far and wide, the music started to be amplified with special hi-tech equipment, so that it could be heard by everyone who lived in the vicinity and some distance away too. Local residents finally had enough and complaints to the local council started to snowball. Finally, Camden Council have ruled that they will only grant English Heritage a license for eight concerts this year, not ten, and they must cut the ticket numbers to 8,000 per concert. English Heritage grumpily says that is not economically viable, so they will not put on any concerts at all.

They have killed what used to be a wonderful summer tradition through sheer greed.

RECIPE:
Who says you can’t teach an old ‘dog’ new tricks? A dear friend was celebrating his 60^th last weekend, and I was asked to make the birthday cake – specifically a carrot cake. Well, I have made more carrot cakes than I’ve had hot…well, maybe not QUITE that many, but a fair few over the years. I have always used the same tried and trusted carrot cake recipe and I’ve never had any complaints. However, for some perverse reason I decided to abandon my usual recipe and instead to use the recipe I'd read on another blog. Some months ago, Reluctant Nomad posted his carrot cake recipe on his blog, and so I tried it out. All I can say is, it is the BEST. When you read through it, it seems much like any other carrot cake recipe in terms of ingredients etc, but somehow it turns out to be the Űber Carrot Cake of all time. Which is a long-winded way of saying that I am not posting a carrot cake recipe, click on the side bar link to find Reluctant Nomad's blog and check his archive for November 7th 2006 to find his recipe.
But I am posting a recipe for the icing which a birthday cake demands!

CREAM CHEESE ICING

175g cream cheese
175g softened butter
250g icing sugar (sieved)
½ teaspoon vanilla essence

Put all the ingredients into a bowl or food processor and beat/whiz together until smooth and creamy.
Spread over the top of the cake - et voila!