Wassail

Ingredients:
1 qt. apple cider
1 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
2 cinnamon sticks or 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 c. orange juice
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 c. sugar
2 tart apples, thinly sliced


Directions:

Place cider, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon sticks, orange juice, sugar and apples in a large pan. Heat thoroughly but do not allow to boil. Strain and serve

Internet Inspiration

Just a few examples of some of the beautiful things I have found in my wonderings through the ether. I will attempt over Christmas how to set up links to these fabulous people's blogs.

Happy Christmas!!

The Christmas tree is up, and decorated tastefully in keeping with the tone of the nieghbourhood. Lights are strung up, mistletoe too, presents wrapped, cards sent. Whoopee!! I went shopping to Waitrose yesterday, I was like Bree from Desperate Housewives. No poor people shop in Waitrose Darling, and it was lovely, calm, full of delicious food, and the staff were fabulously helpful. Of course it costs, but hey, its Christmas.
We are going to P's mums for Christmas day, with the children, I am really looking forward to it. And especially spending time with P.

Had some new ideas, based on all the collages I have been doing in my sketchbook recently. I am going to start doing them on wood in the new year.

The Big Smoke

Just got back from London, visiting Al and Tomo and Kai in The Eagle. Had a great time, nice food in the pub, Kai was gorgeous as ever, getting more beautiful every day. Did lots of lovely shopping and P got me an engagement ring. I am truly blessed. Happy Christmas one and all!!

Discovered a great shop in Exmouth market, called Family tree. Bought a t-shirt. Lots of Christmas shopping done, and fell in love with Shu Uemura Cleansing Oil.

Still drawing and stuff, so feel quite positive creatively.

Christmas cards

Finished making my cards last night. Have kept them really simple this year, but have a recipe for German Gluwein or Wassail inside.

Sketchbook pages

Been doing some more collage/drawing in my sketchbook. Very inspired at the moment, just wish I had more time to play.

Music - Calexico and Iron & Wine

Elin's playlist

Made a playlist for Elin recently after she came to my birthday party and really liked Hem. This one is really lovely, moody and melancholy - just up my street.

Baby steps

I need to reassure myself with thoughts of Cornwall in the summer. I need to bolster myself up with the idea of time with P. that is not fraught and filled with difficulty.
I have been living with P. and the children for 2 months now. It is amazing how time flies when you're stressed out of your head. I am now in the throws of trying to get as much information as possible about the pitfalls and difficulties of becoming a step-parent. I have read loads of things and tried to make sense of it all, but the overwhelming thing that comes across in everything is how hard it is. No!
I was used to having time on my own, space to do what I wanted to do. When I came home from work I could unwind and listen to music, cook, watch TV. Some nights I would see P and that would be something fabulous to look forward to; we spent our time together well, because we knew we weren't going to see each other all the time. I am worried that now the time we are alone, is spent recuperating from the kids. When Paul and I were not living together I was a refuge for him, but now I need a refuge too.
My relationship with the children is evolving, some things are getting easier, but some things are harder. I must try to keep my head and talk to P about the things that worry me. But I need to feel that it is OK to feel bad and that we will work on it together and support each other. I need to also know that we will continue to have a grown up relationship separate from his children.
It is also hard because I don't want him to feel like I am on his case, I want to support and help him with the things that he may find hard to cope with on his own.

Want one!!

Coral gave me a lovely diary from Paperchase for my birthday and a notebook from Miquelrius. So I googled stationery and found a great site for Skripta in Paris and they do mail order notebooks. Bliss!!!

Needful things..

Every day I come to work, armed with aselection of absolute essentials to get me through the day. Sketchbook, pens, little box for carrying all around in and then luxuries like magazine, if I'm feeling flush.

Issue 9 pics

Got the new stuff from Richard about 1ssue 10 in the post. Deadline will be January 6th, but I need to start thinking about this soon. Here is an example of the pages I did for Issue 9. Really pleased with that one.

The Mouser as a kitten

The children are mad about Mouse and made me find photos of him as a kitten, which they have now got copies of to admire. He is really unimpressed by them I'm sorry to say and tolerates any attempt at affection before either running off outside or hiding under the bed. As soon as they get in, they go in search of him, and try to entice him out to play with them.

Playlist for today..

1.Let Go-Frou Frou
2.We Began-The Flies
3.Summer Skin-Death Cab For Cutie
4.Mill Creek-Darden Smith
5.State of the Union-David Ford
6.volcano-damien rice
7.Rebellion-The Arcade Fire
8.Nobody's Fault but My Own-Beck
9.Revelator-Gillian Welch
10.woman king-iron & wine
11.Last Goodbye-Jeff Buckley
12.Caleb Meyer-Joan baez
13.The Acrobat-Johnathan Rice
14.I Would Rather Hide-Joseph Arthur
15.Factory-Martha Wainwright
16.Let Me Kiss-You-Morrissey
17.Vampire Blues-Neil Young
18.Look For Me (I'll Be Around)-Neko Case
19.Sunset-Nitin Sawhney-Prophesy
20.fake plastic trees-radiohead
21.My winding wheel-Ryan Adams
22.I Can't Wait-Shearwater
23.Sevenswans-sufjan stevens
24.You Cut Her Hair-Tom McRae
25.Rabbit In Your Headlights-U.N.K.L.E.

Playlist for today..

The Arcade Fire
Beck
John Martyn
Nitin Sawhney
Ben Harper
Vetiver
The Innocence Mission
Stevi Nicks
Coldcut
Deathcab for Cutie

Beautiful St. Ives

Thinking about St. Ives today.

Granola recipes from my "Pulse" days

1. Great Granola

5 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup wheat bran
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup walnuts
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup apple or pineapple juice
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup chopped assorted dried fruit such
    as apricots, raisins, figs or apples

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix together oats, wheat germ, bran, seeds, nuts and cinnamon in a large bowl.

In a small bowl, blend together honey, juice and oil. Add to dry mixture and stir until all ingredients are completely coated. Spread on baking sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick vegetable cooking spray. Bake for 25 minutes. Stir a few times during baking to brown evenly.

Let cool, then add dried fruit.

Autumn Garden

This week I am mostly listening to..

The Arcade Fire. Read a strange article in the Guardian or the Observer and they sounded like a complete bunch of nutters. But they make good music, very cool. "Who killed the Zutons?" are a recent find too. Have not been doing enough listening to music recently, since moving in with the surf dude in fact. Firstly the house layout is different and my CDs are in a strange place, and then when we have the kids it's too noisy and we are both busy doing something food or chores related. I need to sort this out so that I find the time for my own stuff. Mouse is till sneaking around trying to find some peace and quiet where he can, and slowly getting used to our new home. I really like living together though, just the logistics of the space that I haven't yet got my head round, I had got so used to my little house in Llantwit, with all my things around me. Maybe this weekend we will get all the boxes sorted out.

So, as to the music listening..catching up in work plugged into iTunes, headphones on. Antisocial, but necessary.

Sketchbook pages

Spent a good part of the weekend sorting out what will be my workroom. It is small but lovely and I have managed to fit in my plan-chest. The best thing is having a view out to the garden, and the worst thing is the slugs that seem to creep in under the door. I think we need to do some serious sealing or something, as they keep eating Mouse's food.

Issue 9

Heather dropped off the new pocket sized Issue the other day. We now live just round the corner from each other. Really liked the format and some of the pages were great.

Friday Workspace

This is my pinky workspace. Nice huh?

Enough with the chairs already

The chair drawing obsession grows. Scouring interiors magazines for sexy chair pics that inspire me. INTERIORS is the best, closely followed by HOMES & GARDENS.

Music and stuff

Keep seeing Nissan Figaros around the place. I have fallen in love with them.

Listening to some really interesting new music at the moment, seem to be getting a bit folky in my dotage. This all started with the film Garden State and buying the soundtrack. Absolutely excellent songs and I have been working my way through most of the artists, and then they have led on to other people I had never heard of. iTunes has made a huge difference to my musical enthusiasm. This is my most recent playlist


The Acrobat-Johnathan Rice
Lost Cause-Beck
Romulus-Sufjan Stevens
Receiver-Hem
You Cut Her Hair-Tom McRae
Summer Skin-Death Cab For Cutie
We Began-The Flies
Nobody's Fault but My Own-Beck
Night Like a River-HEM
The Lakes of Canada -The Innocence Mission
You May Be Blue-Vetiver
Mill Creek-Darden Smith
Night Like a River-HEM
Sevenswans-sufjan stevens
One more mile-Tom Macrae

Big changes

Handed over the keys for the house in Llantwit yesterday evening and picked up my scruffy old blue chair that Paul hates, my brabantia bin and last little bits and pieces, including the little glass droppers that I had put up on the lights at Christmas.
So now I live in Penarth. It was sad leaving my old house, but this morning I woke up feeling all excited about my new home. I will have to get used to living with children, as in my life up until now, I have been able to do what I want, listen to music, watch what I wanted on the TV. The kids are noisy and they don't leave you alone, they grumble and complain before they will do anything. They bicker and deliberately annoy each other and they poke around in your stuff. All very hard things for me to get used to. I knew all these things would be hard, sharing my space etc. I don't want to be an outsider, but I feel very aware that they are a family, and I have just landed in their nest because of their Dad, and I don't yet fit.

ripcurlgirl blues

One of the Williams sisters sent me a schtoopid, parranoia inducing chain email about not sitting on cinema seats in case some evil person has put an HIV infected needle in it with a nasty note attached should you manage to puncture yourself. Which reinforced my particular and burning hatred of chain emails. One they are pathetic, and often they are nasty, and if someone wants to email me, why can't they just send soething nice. It's like junk mail on the internet. I decide to trawl google to see what other people felt about them and found this:


"Hello, my name is Alfonso Merkin. I am suffering from rare and deadly
diseases, poor scores on final exams, lack of sexual activity, fear of
being kidnapped and executed by anal electrocution, and guilt for not
sending out 50 billion fucking forwards sent to me by people
who actually believe that if you send them, that poor 6 year old girl in
Arkansas with lung cancer brought on by second-hand smoke from the
cigarettes smoked by the big bad men who kidnapped her and took pornographic
pictures of her for use on their child pornography web site will get 6
fucking cents every time you send me the letter.

Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you and everyone
you send "his" email to $1000? How fucking stupid are you? Ooooh, looky
here! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get laid by every
Victoria's Secret model in the catalog! What a bunch of bullshit.

So basically, this message is a big FUCK YOU to all the people out there
who have nothing better to do than to send me stupid chain mail forwards.
Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my apartment and
sodomize me in my sleep for not continuing the chain which was started by
Jesus in 5 A.D. and was brought to this country by midget pilgrims on the
Mayflower and if it makes it to the year 2000, it'll be in the Guinness
Book of World Records for longest continuous streak of blatant stupidity.



Here's how it goes:

*Send this to one person: One person will be pissed off at you for sending
them a stupid chain letter.

*Send this to 2-5 people: 2-5 people will be pissed off at you for sending
them a stupid chain letter.

*5-10 people: 5-10 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a
stupid chain letter.

*10-20 people: 10-20 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a
stupid chain letter.

*20 to 674951 people: 20 to 674951 people will be pissed off at you for
sending them a stupid chain letter.

Thanks!!!! Good Luck!!!


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Chain Letter Type 2

Hello, and thank you for reading this letter. You see, there is a starving
little boy in Baklaliviatatlaglooshen who has no arms, no legs, no
parents, and no goats. This little boy's life could be saved, because for
everytime you pass this on, a dollar will be donated to the Little
Starving Legless Armless Goatless Boy from Baklaliviatatlaglooshen Fund.

Remember, we have no way of counting letters sent and this is all bull. So
go on, reach out.

Send this to five people in the next 47 seconds. Oh, and a reminder-if you
accidentally send this to 4 or 6 people, you will die instantly.

Thanks again!!


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Chain Letter Type 3

Hi there!! This chain letter has been in existence since 1897. This is
absolutely incredible because there was no email then and probably not as
many little 8 year olds writing chain letters. So this is how it works.

Pass this on to 1,5067 people in the next 7 minutes or something horrible
will happen to you like:

Queer Horror Story #1

Miranda Pinsley was walking home from school on Saturday. She had recently
received this letter and ignored it. She then tripped in a crack in the
sidewalk, fell into the sewer, was gushed down a drainpipe in a flood of
poopie, and went flying out over a waterfall. Not only did she smell nasty,
she died. This Could Happen To You!!!

Queer Horror Story #2

Dexter Bip, a 13-year-old boy, got a chain letter in his mail and ignored
it. Later that day, he was hit by a car and so was his boyfriend (hey,
some people swing that way-"not that there's anything wrong with that!").
They both died and went to hell. They continued to suffer in hell where
they were both cursed to eat adorable kittens every day for eternity. This
Could Happen To You!!!

Remember, you could end up like Pinsley and Bip did. Just send this letter
to all of your loser friends, and everything will be Ok.


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Chain Letter Type 4:

As if you care, here is a poem that I wrote. Send it to every one of your
friends.


Friends

-A friend is someone, who is always at your side,
-A friend is someone who likes you even though you smell like poop,
-A friend is someone who likes you even though you're disgustingly ugly
-A friend is someone who cleans up for you after you've soiled yourself
-A friend is someone who stays with you all night while you cry about your
loser life,
-A friend is someone who pretends they like you when they really think you
should be raped by a monkey and then thrown to vicious dogs,
-A friend is someone who scrubs your toilet and vacuums and then gets the
check and leaves and doesn't speak much English, no sorry that's the
cleaning lady,
-A friend is not someone who sends you chain letters because he wants his
wish of being rich to come true.
Now pass this on! If you don't, the mutant lizards will eat you.
Remember, the moral of the story is, if you get a chain letter, ignore it.  If it's a joke or something, send it, sure, but if it's gonna make people feel guilty (i.e. the willieless boy from Baklaliviatatlaglooshen) or nervous (i.e.  Miranda Pinsley who ended up in a waterfall of shit) just delete it. Do yourself and everyone else in the world a favor and say, Fuck chain letters!"