............yesterday, after a shopping trip for groceries, I baked away the afternoon. And it felt good.
A dozen or so lemon iced fairy cakes and vanilla butter cream fairy cakes made all the difference. Just recently I've lost my love of cooking, preferring instead to make-do with whatever easiest, handiest. Not me at all.
Apart from baking a malt loaf for Mr Hairy's pa, I hadn't baked much at all. Not like me at all.

I made a beef and vegetable suet crust pie yesterday, didn't need to follow a recipe just used good quality minced steak and a jugful of mixed vegetables. To moisten and hold it all together; a mugful of beef stock mixed with brown sauce, garlic, mushroom ketchup and plenty of salt, pepper and thyme. The pastry, made with self raising flour and beef suet was easy to handle and delightful to cut and eat. I think I prefer it to shortcrust. It's more tolerant of cooks with other things on their minds.
Talking of which..Crying has become the norm with Mother recently.

I suppose........worrying about mum and her never ending need to go out, which I'm sorry to say, really irritates and tires me, is taking its toll. My body is screaming for a holiday somewhere, anywhere. Either warm and continental or damp and English, I really wouldn't mind. But I have to stay put, here, in the bungalow, day in day out. No postcards from me.

The one thing that gets me through each day is the night time. That time between 8:30 and 9:30 when I do the 'care' run by making sure mum has swallowed her pills (have found a  handful under the bed), dropping drops into her bad eye, looking for books and socks, doing her pillows, checking her toes and leg skin and generally making sure she's fit for bed. Then I turn and walk away leaving her to her own particular hell and me to my own. But in the bedroom even though my mind is swollen to bursting with exhaustion, I'm surrounded by my lovely run of the mill stuff, odd bits of jewellry, a colony of lipsticks, a few books and a diary. Beyond price.
If the walls fell in and the ceiling spewed piss it'd still be my little sanctuary.


Today I'm making Marjoram Pork Chops with pasta shells and garlic bread. For afters, lemon curd pudding and ice cream.

Shot along to the Havens Hospice charity shop in Rochford to pick up four tea cups and four saucers I should have grabbed yesterday!
I phoned ahead asking the lady to put them aside for me and that I'd be there in a jiffy.
The jiffy took fifteen minutes...

On asking the elderly chap on the till for my wares he promptly handed to me bit by never ending bit SIXTEEN well wrapped pieces of Royal Doulton's Rose Elegans......Um.......

We exchanged few words only doing the very English thing of smiling weakly and nodding and saying thank yous and bad weather etc etc. And so after handing over £16 I hot footed it out of the sparkling door making my way back to the car where Mr Horsehound and mother waited.

Yesterday, on one of my endless trips to the secondhand shops in Rochford town, I spotted the 8 delicate pieces of fine bone china but behaving in a way so unlike me, I left them there on the shelf next to a company of horrible chunky mugs. Why I did I don't know.....maybe the price was inhibiting me from enlarging my pottery collection but at any rate I left the shop cupless.

Then last night as Mr Hairy, mum and myself watched Jagged Edge I felt as if my head would explode...I had to get them.

So this morning I made breakfastless haste (mother and Mr Horsehound in tow) to the Harrods of Charity Shops.

I was expecting eight pieces but on arrival I clocked sixteen.. Er...eyes wide, brain wondering whether I should enquire about all them cups and saucers or should I just pay and leg it.
I legged it.

Back home I drank my first cup of sweet white tea and by jolly jingo did it feel good:)
I'll not risk fracturing, breaking or chipping any of the duck egg blue crocks by hanging them from wonky cup hooks or piling them up by the ghastly white kettle (got to do something about that) instead I've given them a pine shelf of their own.
Beautiful absolutely beautiful.


But now back to the hard wonderful work of cooking.
As I type I'm soaking fruits in malt extract and black tea in readiness for the Sticky Malt Loaf I'll be baking tomorrow for Mr Hairy's pa. He, that's pa, hurt his hand and when people hurt they need sweet stuff. And I do sweet so well.

Being cooked tonight for Mr Horsehound, mum and myself are oven baked Cumberland snorkers, these will be laid in warm very crusty 5 inch Lurpakked  baguettes and then covered with lots on fried onion, ketchup and mustard... Whether I'll top mother's sausage roll with melted cheese is something I need to dwell on, what I don't need to ponder however is whether I'll slather melted cheddar on mine and Mr H's.
It could be gross.
Nothing beats Coleslaw as an accompaniment to french fries and snorkers so a good low fat mini-mountain will be lovely.

I've thought a lot about cooking lately and how little I've been doing. And it worries me. Because. If one suddenly stops doing something one loves there's a screw loose somewhere. I know, very well whats loosened my screws. But she can't help it. It's a terrible thing to be dying. Likewise it's upsetting knowing, watching and waiting.
There isn't anything any of us can do about life and its fickleness, its tendency to stop us in our normal tracks by throwing us a a grizzly problem is summat we need to deal with so deal with it we do. The victims, the true victims of our fears and problems are our little hobbies.~

Mine is baking, but recently my tins have gone cold.

But there'll be gas burned a-plenty tomorrow and Monday as a whole load of sweet fancies get baked.

:)

Books I'm reading:

Changeling by the popular historical novelist Phillipa Gregory. Heresy, love, witchcraft, religion in 15th century Italy. The hero is Luca tall, seventeen and educated, a changeling possibly, a real faerie child. The girl, Isolde is beautiful of course, doomed for a life with a man chosen by her wicked brother, but saved when she enters a nunnery. The two team up and save the world.
An Omelette and A Glass Of Wine by cookery icon Elizabeth David. Essays and recipes on food and life. A clever writer whose descriptions of her travels make me yearn a lot  for lemons, olives and fried apples.
The Snow Child by new writer, Eowyn Ivey. A book so poignant I can barely read it. Eowyn takes me to the new home of a childless couple, Jack and Mabel. They live in the raw unforgiving Alaska wilderness where a child appears to them in the snow. A small delicate being. A supernatural gift to the barren Mabel.
Through the power of the written word my arms also open wide...



Food I'm cooking:

A simple chicken casserole, one I make time and time again, only this time I'm pouring in dry cider instead of red wine.I like cider, it's earthy, sincere, reminds me of ruffled blankets on grass.
A Bread Pudding. Using day old bread, mixed fruits and spices moistened with egg melted butter and milk. Dusted with freshly grated nutmeg before being baked for an hour or till firm and well browned.

I didn't have time today to do much else except stare lovingly at my new blue worktops so generously put together by my very good friend and agony uncle the very astute Mr Hairy Suit. He, who has so much going on in his shed and life miraculously finds some time to instill belief into my often weary self and to install ink blue worktops speckled with pale grey into my well worn kitchen. They and he have transformed the kitchen and my belief that all it takes to lift the spirit is a little money and an excellent friend.


Mother has been difficult today... so obnoxious were her unjustified outbursts that she made me cry.

I'm going to bed now, it's nearly half ten, (although the timing on this post might state a lot earlier I left it half composed to deal with mother)  .I'll continue, for a short time anyway, to read The Snow Child..Jack has invited the girl to join them for a simple supper...

......Yesterday mother and I went arctic.
Done up like eskimos we idiotically 'braved' the weather in order to satisfy mother's request for a shopping trip. As the ungritted pavements were too dangerous I pushed Mother in the road. You know what I mean...

We bought stuff.
We trekked back to the car and it was in the car I had a shock. Mother patted my leg saying "Well Done".
I nearly threw up.
Suddenly I loved her again.
But not for long.
We had 'words' later on...

Then later that afternoon Mr Hairy popped in and re-put up my lovely NEW pine shelves. The kitchen is coming around..... Only need some fresh curtains and it'll look smashing. So today Mr Hairy and I will dawdle along the high street in the hopes of spotting some blue gingham. Mother stays put.

:)

I took the ladder away and there was a bit more to do...

Yesterday was smashing... there was I kitted out in my OLD England shirt and mother's old size 10 slacks slapping blue paint around, most of which hit the spot.
I had help in the form of Mr Horsehound and Mr Hairy.
Both did their best.

Later on, in the evening, after the sausages, I took myself into the front room where mother held court. It was so funny. She snapping about the time I spent away from her throne and me talking to her in mock Nursie tones ( Now now Iris I do have other duties dear, now relax a bit and swallow your senna pods).

We watched as Mark Selby trailed Graeme Dot Com and as he did I felt truly worried. Because the thought of my Sunday afternoon without drooling over Selby's silver trousers was too difficult. But he won anyway albeit with a struggly tussle. That naughty stick boy Dott hanging on till he met his sticky end... Ok no more stick jokes.

Today I'm painting again this time though under the watchful eye of Mr Horsehound, who with his customary cool will finish orf the hard bits, whereas I will roast a chicken and watch the Final between the two hot shots in the snooker universe. Messrs. Selby and Robertson.

A Dream Final in the making.

.........We're painting kitchen walls today.
Mother will not supervise.
If all goes to schedule there should be some quick pork bangers and buttery mash round about teatime.
Whilst we paint I WILL find the time to pop in to the front room to check the snooker.
Mark Selby, the jester from Leicester won his match against the Welshman Mark Williams so that made me feel very tingly all over. Selby is smashing. In the facial sense. He's through to the semi final.
Others in the running to pick up the trophy and cheque are likeable Aussie Neil Robertson, the  lovable but painfully thin Scot, Graeme Dott. Also dishing out his own particular brand of ballsmanship will be  The very Reverend (too good to be true) Shaun Murphy, whose pudding chops make me wonder what snacks he gluttonizes on in the vestry.

So...........Murphy takes on Robertson at 13:00 hrs and 6 hours later Selby v. Dotty.

I'll definitely be downing the roller at seven................

........Even wearing a fur hat, full length coat and thermal unmentionables I still FROZE!

Mother froze too but was temporarily warmed up by a Greggs hot sausage roll.

She ate it whilst enjoying the warmth inside a little cafe right in the heart of Rochford town.

And as Mother, my good self and Mr Hairy Suit supped our tea I wondered about the future, my future but my thoughts were interrupted by a stain.
My mug had one.
So incensed was I that I went to the counter asking for another cup of tea only this time could I have a clean mug.
"Oh no dear, it's not dirty, it's just tea bag marks" said the shocked nice lady "I do apologise".
Feeling a complete fruitcake, I apologised too.
Must be a British thing.

Meanwhile mother waved her sausage roll around moaning about the NHS.
Hairy Suit was the epitome of calm.

Outside, as my glasses misted up, I felt rejuvenated by the leafy drink and went into the RSPCA shop wherein I bought a super 1970's style leather hand stitched shoulder bag in camel brown. I smiled lovingly as I held it to my nose. Some bags made of leather from that era have an aroma about them. The leather i fear is untreated, raw. And is therefore apt to pong a bit. This one didn't though so I handed over a few bob to Cheryl on the till and pushed mum out into the wicked winter weather. Hairy Suit was cool too as I bought book after book from the cheapo shelf outside, also bagged was a smashing Book of Knowledge for young Master Hairy. "He'll love this" His dad said. "And so will I" I thought as images of myself and the young man
leafing through hundreds of pages of colourful essential learning material floated through my mind. It's gonna be cool!

Back home to lots of scrambled eggs, snooker and talks about dream lives and bravery.

And so to now, and as Divinely Handsome Mark Selby gets crucified by Demonic looking Stuart Bingham in the Betfair Snooker championship from Alexander Palace in London I wait with frosty breath for the call from Mr Horsehound telling me he's on the train somewhere between London and the seaside.
Damn shiftwork... it kills marriage.