some comic relief

Yesterday we enjoyed Red Nose Day here in the UK. I love Comic Relief. The whole country gets into the event - schools let the kids come in in fancy dress (the little one went in her pjs), there are fundraising activities all over the country (we baked cupcakes and chocolate brownies), the supermarkets sell red noses and assorted red-nosed paraphernalia, and an entire day is devoted to comedy and raising money. This year Comic Relief celebrated 25 years and apparently has raised more than £750 million in that time. This years event alone has raised more than £75 million. I didn't actually watch it last night, since I was out, but I intend to watch the highlights up catch up TV later. One of the highlights for me, was this sketch from a couple of years ago.

c is for cookie

Cookie Monster was always my favourite on Sesame Street (and Animal on The Muppets, funnily enough. Is there a trend here? Wild, monosyllabic creatures with not a thought in their furry heads beyond hedonistic pleasure?) Anyway, I've always been a bit of cookie monster myself. Biscuits were really the one thing I ever made and my motivation was pure greed. Before marriage and pre-kids, I wasn't much of one for cooking at all and throughout university barely prepared myself a hot meal. Having children changed all that, and I still whip up a batch of biscuits in less time than it would take to walk to the shops and buy a packet. These sweet and salty peanut cookies have been a hit with the whole family and take hardly any effort at all.

50g Trex (this stuff will freak you out, but it's crucial to give the cookies their light and crispy texture)
100g butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
75g light brown sugar

Cream it all together. It will look disgusting but stick with it. Add 175g self-raising floor and 125g of salted peanuts and mix into a sticky dough, then drop teaspoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet and bake in a 190C oven for 10 minutes until golden.

(from nigella, where else?)

home

Back from a flying visit to Hong Kong, catching up with work and old friends. On the journey back, we flew right over Moscow, which looked fantastic from the sky with all the roads radiating out from the heart of the city.

the neverending happening

Hey, I made a friend.

Well hell, I've made a few in the time we've been here of course, playground friends who I stop and chat with when we pick up the kids or drop them off at one another's houses, people I see in the village or have a drink with in the pub, those I chat to in passing on walks with the dog. All good, nice people. But there are a few who stand out from the crowd for me and one of them is Clare. I met her last summer at our local self-styled musical happening 'Ebstock' where she was the ebbulent MC and her husband Matt was playing guitar. She's a wild woman, fresh from London and lately returned here to her roots where she and Matt live in a converted barn on her cousin's country pile just down the road from us. I like Clare. She's loud and funny and rude and outrageous and an performer through and through. Matt is a musician and an artist, quieter, I hardly know him yet. He's been making an album in London, heading back there for a few days or weeks at a time to work with Bill Fay on what, it turns out, is his first studio album in 40 years - and it's a hit (Mojo's Top Albums of 2012 at #3 no less.) I've just bought it and you should too.






Here he is on Jools Holland sans Matt, sadly.

family history

Back in the day, when I lived in India, I used to answer the inevitable question of "where are you from?" with a long and unneccessarily complicated story of my life thus far ("well, I was born here and lived there and moved to...") to which, one Indian lady simply cut me short with, "No, where are your people from?" My people. Ah, they're from Wales (mostly).

My grandma and great-grandma 1903

My cousin has scanned hundreds of old family photos collected by my mum and handed down to her by my grandmother whose own father was something of an amateur photographer. Sadly, many of them have no note of who they are or where the photos were taken so we have little idea of the story behind them. This saddens me. Ordinary lives can be the most fascinating, can't they? The trials and tribulations, the loves, the losses, the dramas, the twists and turns of the road.

Llangollen, 1926. I think that's my great-great grandmother on the far right. We go here sometimes.

Give me your answer, do.

Chester, 1896. Not so different today.

My great-grandma, great-great-grandma and grandma




I've been thinking about family a lot lately. It feels good to know where you come from even if you don't know where you're going!

::

Looking back at this post, I realise it's entirely matriarchal. So, lest I be drowned in cries of sexism, here's my great-grandfather:

On a camel!

On a swing!

By the sea!

words of wisdom

Funny, two images that sum up what I have been talking to the big kid about this week. When she frets about joining the competition dance class because some of the other kids are on 'pointe' and she doesn't know the first thing about ballet, I tell her that everyone starts somewhere and if she lets that put her off she'll never know how great she can be (and giving something a try is the only thing that counts). And when she tells me that one of her best friends got an Apple Airbook for Christmas - to go with the iPad and iPod and Blackberry she already has - I point out the wealth of memories she collected this Canadian Christmas - skating in the dark on New Year's Eve, sledging and screaming down a snowy hill with her little sister in front, eating snacks in a snow fort she built with her dad, baking birthday cupcakes with her nana - are worth more (and last longer) than any glossy white gadget.

And then I point out that she did get an eye pad for Christmas.

design crush

Lucy Chadwick is someone I've seen in the occasional magazine, and, as I have discovered, has pages and pages dedicated to her over at pinterest. This video by Todd Selby for Zara has me lusting after her lifestyle (who wouldn't?) - I like her style too. I can do the messy top-knot, the British accent and the Converse trainers. It's the rest of the effortlessly cool chic I'm missing.





What I'm also missing are my glasses. Lost, gone, vanished into thin air. Since I rarely need them (the prescription is so minimal as to be almost a vanity), I can live without them. But if I were to buy some new glasses (or sunglasses, for that matter) and I lived in the US, I would definitely check out Warby Parker who donate a pair of glasses to someone in need for every pair you purchase. Win win.