Podward

As requested by La Spice.

This was enough for 3-4 sweet potato and goat’s cheese parcels.

Shortcrust pastry – made with 4oz SR flour, 4oz plain flour and 4oz margarine (and an oxo cube!) – this mix makes nice pastry!
1 sweet potato, peeled and diced.
1 small onion, peeled and chopped small
1 large clove garlic
1 tabsp of any spicy sauce you have to hand
1 small pack of goat’s cheese
A squirt of oil and some beaten egg.

Boil the sweet potato until just tender.

Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil until just nicely. Then add the cooked sweet potato and whatever spicy sauce* you like to the pan and toss it all together allowing the sweet potato to break down and get all nicely mushy.

Roll out the pastry to make four circles.

Spread a large blob of the mash onto each circle and top with a few chunks of goat’s cheese. Damp the edges and fold into a pasty shape and crimp edges together.

Brush each parcel with beaten egg and cook at gas 5/6 or equivalent for about 20-25 mins until they are golden brown and delicious.

*My own sauce that I used is a mix I make to add to mayonnaise to make a coronation sauce and is as follows…

1 tabsp oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 tabsp curry powder
¼ pint stock
1 round teasp. tomato puree
Juice of ½ lemon
2 round tabsp sweet chutney

Heat oil in a pan and add chopped onion and fry gently for 5 mins until soft. Stir in curry powder and cook for a few minutes

Stir in stock, tomato puree, lemon juice and chutney.

Stir until boiling and simmer for 5 mins. Remove from heat and strain into bowl.

Once cooled the liquid can be stored in the fridge for a few weeks. It can be used to add to any dish for a little extra flavour or mixed with mayonnaise and cream to make an excellent coronation sauce.

Made some nice pasty-type things yesterday. Sweet potato and goat’s cheese. They were yummy.

I go swimming every Friday lunchtime - bar school holidays that is. I take the same bag and every week I drop my pound for the locker into the bag. So today I tipped the bag up and a little heap of pound coins dropped out. Ok so as a savings scheme it does have a fairly limited appeal in that there is no interest accruing but at the end of the month and still days until payday it is a pleasant little find. Enough for a little treat.

The trouble with being back at work again is that the weeks simply fall into the past with the speed of……of….something very fast. I haven’t had time so far this week to just fritter away some minutes on the computer. Plus I feel dispirited, tired and a bit lifeless really. And snappy and fed up. I’ve no idea why! Just febryitis I suppose.

The girlie and her chums have been having a pancake party today as they didn’t have to be in college and the huge bonus of this is that the house has got tidied and they cleared up after themselves as well. I shall encourage her to have those friends round more often.

I did track down the pattern I was looking for. The breast pattern. It is just a bit more interesting than knitting yet another scarf. It looks like it’s going to be huge though, I’m glad I’m not buying a bra for it. There is also a pattern out there somewhere for a penis with ‘realistic looking cable veins’ but whereas the breast does have a specific and valuable use I’m not sure the penis one does. Unless of course it is to teach boys how to ‘jerk the gherkin’ but they seem to pick that up without too much assistance. Anyway veins or no veins I’ll give that one a miss as it looked a bit fiddly.

The frogs are now officially in residence again. There were at least three little heads poking out of the water today. The early frog catches the best spot in the pond in which to……….well you know!

Hey ho, better go hunt for my hankies, more dancing tonight.

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We don’t own a dog. I am not a dog person, I am a cat person. If I wanted to have a dog I would have one so why is it that on so many occasions I have to contend with a dog in the garden. It has happened on numerous occasions and with at least four different dogs if recollection serves me right. This morning I was lying in bed wondering if I really should shake a leg and get up or if I could struggle on under the duvet for a few more half-hours when the girlie called out to say there was a dog on the patio. She wasn’t kidding and not a small fellow either, a Great Dane possibly, not being a dog lover I don’t know breeds but it was Great Dane sized and still a puppy really. I pulled my trusty Aran jumper on over my PJ’s and went out to shoo him back up the garden, presumably the direction from which he had arrived. He took my greeting as a friendly gesture of encouragement and the warmest invitation to make play with him. He dashed over to me crashing through anything in between, and then he jumped up at me and pawed me all over. Luckily he was so entranced by Sylvester’s attempts to turn himself into an inside-out hissing toilet brush and even further distracted with some munchies that I managed to get a belt through his collar and marched him back home. I would like to point out that it is February, I was in my PJ’s still and I was also barefoot. Both my drive and the dog’s own drive are gravel/pebble so I had a fair amount of stimulation on the undersides of my tootsies. It was then I was glad that one of my accomplishments as a child was the ability to run up and down a pebble beach barefoot, a feat that has stood me in good stead from time to time.

After such a rousing start to the day it could surely only get better.

The cats have taken it very easy today after that and keep on about post-traumatic stress syndrome but I’ve told them to pull themselves together.

The girlie and I went to town and had a small spree. A very small spree at under £15. She came home with a book, a pair of jeans and a bottle of perfume. I came home with a cranberry bush, a jumper and a body spray. It is a treat we like to indulge in on occasion, set ourselves a ridiculously small amount of cash to spend and get as much as we can for it.

After that she has spent part of the day knitting a something or other from strips of torn up fabric and I have made a scarf from lengths of wool just knotted together. I really want to make a car from fabric but I haven’t quite worked out how to do that yet and I am also trying to find the pattern to knit some breasts (long story!).

It’s less than two weeks until the play is on. I am ok now with my words, all ten pages are under control and apart from a few slips here and there I think I am on top of that. I have invested in some suitably drab and shapeless garments to wear for the part and tried on a few dreary hairstyles so the outfit is more or less under control. I’ve even sorted how to operate my ciggies. But I am still stuck with a major problem. In spite of having lost more than half a stone I just cannot shift the bust. Don’t get me wrong I am not bigging up the breasts but I am simply not built to look flat-chested let alone be it. Having tried a few ideas I think it is going to have to be a good quality sports bra to minimise the disaster area but I really don’t want the expense. I blame my children, I’m sure these appendages would be less pronounced if I was childless.

I am getting the distinct feeling that hubby is in some sort of grouse about something. Maybe I was being unreasonable asking him to paint the shed but it has been fine today and it looks so fantastic now. Mind you, it has given him a new idea re sheds, he wants to do a shed extension. It will be a nine days wonder I dare say like all his ideas but if it gives him something fun to think about that’s all to the good. I spend so much of my life worrying about whether I have upset or annoyed someone and I wish I wasn’t like it. It eats away at me and I seldom really enjoy myself because of it. I keep trying to tell myself that I am not responsible for other people being happy, or at least it should not be entirely my responsibility but at the end of the day I want everyone to be happy. Totally unrealistic of course.

I can’t honestly say that I have made any further progress on ‘achievement’ this end of the week than I had the other day but I perhaps have too high expectations and need to learn to content myself with small things done. I have done a lot of reading, planted some seeds, done all sorts of little tidy-ups in the garden, made some plans for holidays, rehearsed for the play, and all that sort of stuff. So that isn’t bad really for a week off in February.

It has been a mellow, relaxed sort of a week. But that should be a good thing!

Today we did next to nothing. We drifted through the entire day. It was a flabby and uneventful day.

The closest we got to doing anything was that hubby and I nearly had a run out in the car to Dungeness. A romantic treat for St Valentine’s Day is that – a trip out to look out at Dungeness…in the rain. You have to admit, here is a man who knows how to treat his woman. Luckily I had to pop out and do a bit of work and didn’t get back in time to make an afternoon of it.

We nearly got round to booking our planned holiday to Florence for later in the year. Funding however is a grey area at the moment so we have put off booking anything until there are more plus figures in the accounts.

There were lots of other things we nearly did but didn’t.

Actually the whole nearly thing started the day before when I nearly did some dancing but not enough people turned up so we didn’t. And I nearly bought another book but didn’t. That sort of thing.

A whole bunch of nearly.

I think when I go back to work on Monday and people say ‘Did you have a good break?’ I’ll say ‘Nearly!’

I bent over and the lights went out. A small power blip that came and went but did so at exactly the moment I bent over to pick something up off the floor. I can never be certain if the amplitude of my behind was directly connected with the electri-blip or not.

Monday morning – what a joy to be able to roll out of bed when I felt like it. Well, almost! Hubby came in after his night shift, curled up in bed and started snoring so much so that I couldn’t stop under the duvet until mid-morning as I would have been tempted to. So I just took my book and hunkered down on the sofa and read the rest of it, i.e. most of the book, for the rest of the morning. It was such a luxury. And actually quite an achievement for me to sit still for so long.

Apart from a bit of desultory housework I didn’t do a lot else and only briefly popped out to the shops to buy some cigarettes. I am not a smoker, and have never purchased cigarettes before, well not for me anyway and I bought a lighter too. Not being familiar with the whole cigarette scenario the girlie and I took quite a time to fathom out how to use the lighter. I suppose I should perhaps explain why I, a very anti-smoking non-smoker, am going out to buy cigarettes at all. In the play I am supposed to be smoking in one of the scenes and I was buying them as props so I can familiarise myself with the handling of these little death-dealing bits of nastiness. As far as I know we aren’t actually allowed to light up on the premises we are using so these are not going to be working props – thank goodness. I will do almost anything I am asked to do in a good stage role but I draw the line at giving myself lung cancer for a part. Luckily, because I am talking all the time, I can get away with just playing with the cigarette and the lighter.

We have no internet at the moment but I am on holiday and I desperately want to keep entertained. It’s a real bummer. I keep thinking of things to quickly look up on the web, like Amazon for another book, and I can’t! It is quite wretched. So I also can’t post this until some other when.

It was needlessly complicated. On the side of the box it said it would be far easier to ease the pudding out of its plastic container while still frozen. Crap. Having tried beating the base of the container hard with my hand, applying pressure to the sides and base of the container, and sliding a knife around the inside edge of the container (and in the process stabbing myself in the palm of my hand) I was forced, eventually, to resort to cutting the damn thing out of the plastic with scissors. It was a very yummy though – a panna cotta with raspberry coulis – a naughty treat as I was on my own for the evening.

I had the delicious, and these days rare, luxury of an evening all to myself. I overloaded with treats. I even managed to sit and enjoy an entire film with no interruptions. I read the paper. I read my book. Had a bubbly bath. I know I can do all those things when I’m not alone but they are heavenly to enjoy in a peaceful house. Bliss.

I sometimes worry about my tendency to reclusiveness. I’m sure it is only a reaction to being surrounded by people all the time and that I wouldn’t like it all the time. But I can go for several days like it given the chance without making contact with people, without telephone calls, without needing human interaction. I could see myself turning into some deranged old cat lady with long grey rats-taily hair who lives inside her own little world and does weird stuff. I just pray my children don’t let me!

We failed to wake up to a winter wonderland again. What are we paying our taxes for! If I am paying for winter I want to see a bit more effort put into it.

I had this crazy notion today that I might finish early as I am on holiday next week but then I remembered I had booked myself in to see someone towards the end of the afternoon. And then I made a valiant attempt to empty my ‘to do’ pile (I failed) before my holiday so I wouldn’t have to come back to loads, and I ended up staying later. So another bright idea bites the dust. However, upon my return the girlie let me up my feet, got me a drink, cooked my dinner and then she covered me in a blanket while we watched some Green Wing.

It’s my first evening in this week and I am wrecked. I need more than matchsticks to keep my eyes open as my eyelids are drooping so low its interfering with the keyboard. Time for noddy I think.

Not Noddy, with the ridiculous red hat (red hat no drawers - naughty Noddy). Not Big Ears either, the kindly brownie with way too much waist. And PC Plod is still at work!

Just noddy. Noddy on my toddy. And I thought I had no poetry left in me!

All I want to do is catch up on some threads but the web site I’m on is so slow. Each page seems to take forever to load; you could make a cup of tea in the time it takes. It’s more than a little trying.

So time to throw in the towel – I should maybe just watch the soaps instead of reading about them but quite frankly I have better things to do! In fact part of the reason I catch up on what is going to happen is so I can cope with the angsty stuff if I do catch an episode. I don’t enjoy people being crappy to one another even when it isn’t really real. It is a pity we can’t do that with real life, if we could maybe have a web site that tells us what each week what is going to be happening in the daily episode of our lives………..

If we did of course we could really look forward to the jolly bits and perhaps stay in bed on days when the storyline is not so much fun. There’d be a whole lot of duvet days going on.

I went to watch a play with the girlie last night. O Go My Man by Stella Feehily. It was a college production so the acting was variable but the play itself has moments of uncomfortable clarity. The title is an anagram of monogamy and at one point one of the characters says that the word monogamy is not dissimilar to the word monotony – something someone said to me a while ago. It is about a couple of couples who split up because of adultery but don’t find a better love, just a different one. So many people make that mistake. New isn’t necessarily better, it is just new.

Has anyone noticed how cold it is?

I’m being facetious really; I don’t think I’ve spoken to a single person today that hasn’t mentioned the ‘S’ word. With climate change upon us we should maybe enjoy the snow while we have it.

There is a fine layer of frosty coldness on everything outdoors and underneath the street lights it glitters and glistens and it is quite pretty. I have just had an hour to walk along enjoying it and that is probably enough. I am just getting myself outside of nice cup of tea to try and defrost. It was a toss up between walking back from dancing tonight and walking to work in the morning so I opted for the night time walk. There is peace and time to think without distractions. I miss my weekend solitary rambles that I used to do but I don’t seem to get the time at the moment.

It won’t be easy turning out in the morning if it is all frosty and freezing. I don’t find it easy to push back the duvet and dip my toe into another cold morning. And that’s with the heating on. If we didn’t have that I would not be getting out of bed until about May.

I have made a really nice cake today – well I hope it is nice – it is a coffee streusel cake but instead of adding chopped almonds (because I didn’t have any) I added chopped milk and white chocolate (which I did have). I also made some blueberry muffins. All good comfort food but of course I won’t be partaking myself. It is not easy to turn down chocolate but I am pretty determined when I want to be.

I’ve been in the bad place a couple of days. Where all the walls are hung with morose feelings and lugubrious colours and floor is made of trampled dreams and the ceiling is a bulging black cloud ready to burst in a flood of self-pity and misery. Sounds so much better than saying I have PMT!

However, today has a sunny-blue-sky hat on and in spite of the temperature gauge reading 2 degrees the garden calls. I have swept some seeds and some fairies out of the little shed just as a warm up exercise but then I was offered a cup of tea and you know how it is…..

I have to say I don’t like the advert for quitting smoking where a guy gets a fish hook in his mouth. I don’t know how effective it would be for a smoker but I found it unnecessarily gruesome. Mind you I am a real baby.

Went to a do last night and it must have been the first time in ages I have been to something in a non smoke-free environment. The air was fuggy with the stuff. Within a couple of hours I was wheezing and coughing and a day later I’m still not right. It took me by surprise really to realise how much smoking has been banished to a corner. I will be glad to see it further displaced come July. I have no sympathy whatsoever for smokers. It is a waste of money, it makes people smell and it costs the Health Service millions. It doesn’t look glamorous at all and I struggle to see why anyone would want to walk around with their mouth stuck round a chimney.

I have added to my collection of water butts this weekend. In fact I have doubled the number I have. To two. In the fullness of time I aim to double that number as well. I like to run an environmentally friendly garden as far as possible. The garden is littered with compost heaps. Some of them aren’t official and may need taking in hand once the weather warms up. And one, at nearly six foot, is taller than me so it is quite difficult to get anything more on top. I suspect it may be turning into a triffid and it may need to have its position carefully monitored. I am sure I shall go up the garden one day and find it resting inside the shed, totally spaced out on the overpowering aniseedy smell of the drying fennel and dipping into the birdseed.

Well, it could happen!

Last night a clapping dance was introduced to the proceedings. Oh this was at Morris practice by the way. The old hands have done that sort of thing many times before of course but it was the first time I have tried one. It was the final straw. It is difficult enough for me to co-ordinate my hands and feet with each other and that is without working out where sticks or hankies should be at any given moment but add blinking clapping and its the end for me. I don’t think my left/right confusion helps at all. I am keen and I am a regular attendee and I remember most of the moves with almost mathematical precision but at the end of the day I lack confidence, or just the bravado to bluff my way. The key is to enjoy it and I do – even though I may not realise it until afterwards.

I had a rather vain moment at the swimming pool today. The place has been refurbished and as part of the new regime they have introduced swipe membership cards with a stored photo. So today I had to have my picture taken by the lad on the desk. He said he could leave it until I had my swim if I wanted but I said no, I look better before. I was thinking of the effect the chlorine has on my eyes, turning them into blinding red beacons which really would look bad on a computer screen. I said to him ‘that sounds really vain doesn’t it’ – I suspect he agreed but he didn’t say anything. If I’d known I was going to be photographed I could have applied some slap! There is one great advantage to my myopia in the swimming pool environment and that is that everybody is a blob, with fuzzy edges and few flaws and a bit like a child I always think other people see me in the same way. So much more comforting.

My day off today and I treated myself to a little shopping. As it turned out my retail therapy extended to buying only a knife and a fork. Not a matching pair though as the knife is a little butter spreader and the fork is a garden fork. In fact it isn’t a garden fork, it is a border fork. Border forks are smaller than the big hefty garden forks and easier for a cissy girl to manhandle, or rather woman-handle. It is a fine piece of kit actually, made in the classic style; the handle is a lovely piece of wood tapering to a sleek smooth shaft and shiny stainless steel tines. I wasn’t expecting to buy a new one at present but having misplaced my trusty friend that has been with me for donkey’s ages I impulsively took off to town and treated myself to this rather elegant tool.

The butter spreader is an addition to my quirky little collection………..of butter spreaders. I am amassing a set of butter spreaders for the Open Garden events I’m doing but it is just an excuse to buy these gorgeous little things – they are from Steamer Trading and all with different coloured and patterned handles. I have five now and am aiming for eight. They are for the cream teas. I want black and white (or clear glass) crockery and the little splashes of colour from the spreaders. Just one of my mad ideas! I am quite excited about it really. I managed to find an hour or so in the afternoon to work on my veggie plot, mostly tidying and sweeping but a little light digging too.

This post is rather domestic really but there are days like this when I love to be here and comfortable with my home and my garden with the cats and robins for company and nobody popping in and out much. A homey day. I made a nice vegetable stew for dinner with a couple of extra ingredients to make it interesting i.e. stout and chocolate so the house now smells warm and yummy.

And later on I shall be off to Morris dancing practice. It has been a mellow day off but it’s the sort of day off that makes me want another one sooner than I can have one.