And so it begins...

Another project started, and I need a new project like a hole in the head...but what the hey.  I've wanted to weave chicken wire for months now, and finally remembered to go to the DIY shop and buy some - they sell it by the metre!  Who knew?  This piece is destined to become yet another wretched chimney...hopefully we'll exhibit our wretched chimneys in February and I can stop trying to find ways of making them...I still spend idle moments trying to fathom a method for my chimney brush bristles (see this post).

And another attempt started to try and shrink my mid-section.  Having been a "pear" all my life, I was alarmed to discover a bit of a tendency towards "apple" late last year.  And my baby is 10 years old this year, so that's no longer an excuse...

I'm still getting in a bit of T Tapp a few times a week, but lost the plot after reaching my target of "40 workouts by my 40th birthday" and haven't been consistent.  My upper knee measurement has remained steady (!) even if from there up things have expanded slightly since the summer...

My latest strategy is from the book "Beyond Chocolate", not that I'm a chocoholic, I'm really not.  But I know I overeat.  Not binges, not packets of biscuits, not too much cake or pudding or anything (these are nearly always just weekend things, not everyday)...but a subtle easily justified overeating - cleaning my plate of wholesome, homecooked, locally sourced, probably organic and at the very least free-range food -  every time.  Even if I'm full.

So I'm trying to work on the basis of eating when I'm hungry and stopping when I'm not.  And it's SO much harder than I thought, not least because in this house, if you don't eat it someone else will, so there's no saving for later...as my husband discovered when he went to find the tube of Smarties left over from gingerbread house construction. 

And making this sort of thing for school packed lunches doesn't help:

Apricot flapjacks, as requested by The Girl. 

I'm finding that "greed" and "hunger" feel the same at the moment.  For the sake of my trousers I hope I work out the difference soon.

Oh yes, I've also removed the scales from the bathroom.  But I haven't thrown them out yet...

Ultimate flapjack

Think we've cracked it, folks:

Melt 2oz golden syrup with 6oz butter and 1tbsp water (I weigh the syrup straight into the pan by sitting it on the scales). Mix with 8oz porridge oats (NOT jumbo oats, unless that’s all you’ve got), 4oz plain wholemeal flour, two pinches of bicarb of soda and 6oz Demerara sugar. Chuck in a bit of cinnamon if you like that kind of thing, perhaps some dried fruit as well.

Mix it all up until no dry bits are left and pack it into a 8”x11” tin, lined with baking parchment. Level it off and pack it down with the back of a spoon or a spatula, then bake at 150°C (140°C fan oven) for 35 minutes.

Leave it to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then carefully lift the whole shebang out using the edges of the baking parchment, and leave to cool completely on a wire rack. Cut into as many pieces as you feel is appropriate (we do about 15 squares, enough for 5 pieces each…).

This recipe makes a dense and satisfying flapjack, with a good bit of crunch, but not so much crunch that it hurts your jaws.

Enjoy!

Faith and flapjacks

We met Peter Owen-Jones in Waitrose this morning. We shook his hand and said how much we enjoyed his latest programme, about living a simpler life, one without money. The programme really hit home - not least because it was mostly filmed in his parish of Firle, part of our personal stamping ground and Firle Beacon being a favourite windy whippety walk (the Beacon is always windy; the whippet only when he's had sardines for tea).

Neither my husband or I have a standard 9-5 "job" - he is a self-employed copywriter and fledgling poet working from home, and I am a mix of Chief Socks'n'Pants Washer/Caterer/exams invigilator/embroidery teacher and procrastinating textile "artiste". He earns considerably more than I do, but we are not exactly flush with cash and because of the itinerant nature of our work we do not have colleagues. As a result, life can seem to be all about hard work for little reward with nobody else to share it all with; a lonely life. The programme really touched on the notion that we are all so busy trying to earn enough so that we don't need anyone else, we just end up lonely.

Our conclusion from watching the programme was to stop seeking to have more, and being jealous of those who do have more, and just give more instead. We've both never forgotten the stamp-selling lady on the Isle of Bernera who, when we told her we were camping wild, exclaimed "Och, I'll do ye a cheese burger in the microwave!"

I digress. No microwaved cheese burgers for us today, but some date flapjacks:



Not the ultimate flapjack, and not as good as usual because a deficit of oats necessitated a visit to That Supermarket, which resulted in a mistaken purchase of Jumbo Oats. Not the best thing, but I doubt there will be any left this time tomorrow.