Things to do!

Artstudentfriend asked if I wanted an upholstery project and it has gone from shabby to skeletal in an hour and a half! An exciting new project.

I'm also making 'new' curtains out of some old ones for Friendwithmatchinggirls who's moved house recently.

And I'm supposed to be potting marmalade as I type...

Gardening in the sun

I have made Marmalade at last this week - the Seville oranges have been waiting patiently in the fridge while I avoided noticing them.
Having failed as usual to give anything up for Lent I'm attempting to give up idleness! I suspect playing on the internet falls into that category, so I shall be brief. I'm busy gardening: it's a beautiful day and there are things afoot!

Twenty and happy

I have been married twenty years today. We met in April the year before and became pretty much inseparable (circumstances allowing). We had a couple of years living in different counties for work purposes so started up with a fairly even distribution of household chores and breadwinning. There is certainly an argument to be made for us both continuing to work. We’d probably have been materially richer, but we would have needed major childcare help and would have spent a greater part of our married life apart.

We lead a quiet, homey sort of life that suits us. We discovered early on that neither of us was good at a fight: we both sulk in a childish fashion. So while we have our disagreements we are usually able to see one another’s viewpoint and come to a compromise of some sort. (Our most famous row took place whilst driving down the M1 as to the pros and cons of Radio 1 versus Radio 3 – pop vs. classical for those of you without access – which resulted in us listening to Radio 4 (talk in many varieties). Husband still tunes into 3 when not listening to 5 Sport, but 4 is my permanent companion.)
When we met we earned similar salaries and had similar ambitions – I had intended to remain a career girl and had little interest in children. But I chose a guy in the Army, and I had picked an industry that was going to struggle to allow for the amount of movement we would have to tolerate for Husband’s career, and we both wanted children. As you know I am a hausfrau! It wasn’t what I planned, but both Mother and Grandmother set a fine example of supportive, fulfilled wife.
It can be a tough job! It can be lonely, you can feel unappreciated, particularly by your children, and the simple fact of the repetitive, never-endingness of housework can be tedious, BUT… I know that Husband could not get through life without me, that the girls are capable when necessary and present a polite and charming face to the world (and we love each other most of the time), and that housework can always wait - so long as there are clean clothes somewhere, and food in the fridge!


So, today I have flowers and a card, Husband will make scrambled eggs with smoked salmon for supper, there is a bottle of champagne in the fridge, the girls will eat pizza, and I’m off to find a recipe for some sort of puddingy chocolate cake that we can all enjoy. It might take me all day, or I might make some more marmalade, or play with my upholstery, or curl up with my wedding album; and I will do almost no chores!

Mixed news

Last week I managed another swimming session (on top of the Pilates): 31 lengths in half an hour and not yet dead.
However I spent Sunday dying quietly, throwing up, with an immoveable headache. I thus cancelled yesterday’s Pilates session and my appointment in school, feeling both weak and wimpy and unwilling to spread unknown germs. In two days I had (eventually) eaten two pieces of dry toast and drunk endless water with the gradual addition of black tea and today coffee and porridge. Do you think my body would rather give up food than exercise?


Microsoft Word is trying to correct my use of ‘drunk’ to ‘drunken’ but as I had had a single small bottle of beer with my curry I think it’s wrong.


Also last week I made marmalade. (The link is here: marmalade recipe.) Hopefully there will be enough to keep Husband in breakfast jam of choice until next year, but as usual I will feel unable to donate any to the church fete just in case. (Is marmalade a jam?)


And my Upholstery class started up again. It isn’t true that I’ve forgotten all my lessons since early December, but it was a slow afternoon accomplishing not a great deal. When (?!) I can add photos I will show you what my sofa looks like now – and you might be able to tell that it will be a sofa again!

Resolutions

I have just returned from my weekly Pilates lesson. I am feeling pretty virtuous. On Friday I had an excursion during which I ran an errand to the bank for Eldest, purchased Seville oranges for marmalade from the farm shop (while resisting the temptation to pop into the café for a latte) and swam 30 lengths in the local pool. I’ve also been working harder than usual to eat my five a day.

Those of you who know me will be staggered to hear I even went for a run a couple of weeks ago and ‘hoped’ to go again yesterday. (In fact we walked as he’s hurt his knee: phew!) I accompanied Husband who could also do with the exercise. I went for a run once before, about 10 years ago, and strained a calf muscle as I apparently had the wrong sort of trainers. It put me off, though I did get some proper footwear. Oddly they don’t improve your fitness unless you go running in them! Since Husband’s at his most unfit since I’ve known him, now is the moment to join him: I just about kept up with him and he seemed to enjoy beasting me and felt better for being at least fitter than I am!


Perhaps if I tell the blogosphere that I’ve given up my sedentary ways it’ll be true?

Marmalade

In answer to Countrymummy’s request, and in the presence of Seville oranges, I have information about marmalade!
I’ve been making it for years, and, despite owning a handwritten copy of my grandmother’s recipe, I have had the most reliable success from an unconventional Delia recipe which you can find at Delia Online here. It takes longer in time, but not in effort. Juicing all the oranges and cutting up peel is much less hassle if you poach the oranges first, a la Delia: you can scoop out the oranges' innards with a spoon (all that pith comes away), and it is easy to slice up the skins to the thickness you like. Don’t do it in a processor, the bits end up too small. It is worth making, honest!

Not marmalade

A consequence of the enforced long holiday may be that I have missed the Seville orange window. We ran out of marmalade weeks ago – actually I had to buy it in November I think. My very loyal Husband insists on home made and is kind about its varying quality. His mother used to make it, and luckily I dabbled in such things long before I had a family to consider because it was something my Granny did too. So I don’t resent the requirement. Apart from anything else, preserve making of any sort is a darn sight more satisfying than cleaning... ‘Though if whatever I’m cleaning is REALLY dirty, so that you can tell I’ve done it, I’d admit to a sort of pleasure.

So this isn’t the marmalade that I’d planned to make today after Sainsbury’s delivered the oranges, because they didn't. It is Delia’s Spiced Pickled Runner Beans, a delicious concoction that uses up the runners when your family really can’t face another and your husband is still bringing them home from the allotment. It seemed pretty easy this time largely because I'd chopped up the beans as they came in from the field and put them in the freezer. It will be interresting to see if it tastes any different. Still have another batch to make: the church fete will have that.