Viking Tea Party

Wordless Wednesday: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Christmas Crochet Cheer

I'm having a fairly terrible day (translating prescriptions here and finding out that the antidepressant I've been on is only available here if you want to quit smoking which means I'm going to have to stop taking what's worked for years - a pretty serious thing to do when you're talking about messing with someone's day to day mental health). In hopes of cheering myself up, I'm about to brave the crowds and do a little Christmas shopping since it's a week day and the crowds should be manageable. 

Tonight I'm going to do a little Christmas crocheting (more, really - I've got a project I've wanted to post for ages but can't get a good photo) as well, using this fantastic tutorial.  It's actually making me look forward to buying a bottle of starch! 

Funny Mishaps and Upsetting News

Our first Thanksgiving meal was a surprising success.  I managed to only miss something on a recipe once and realized it before it was too late so the pumpkin pie was delicious and not overly pumpkin-y due to a complete and utter lack of cream.  This is seriously a big deal for me because I'm terrible when it comes to reading directions and have screwed up more than one recipe by skipping something or adding too much or too little of something. 

We had one other near mishap that was quite funny.  I had bought double cream to make whipped cream but realized during dinner that not only do we not own a mixer but we don't even own a whisk!  Just the other day a contestant on Come Dine With Me had spent an hour mixing his whipped cream by hand.  We were in trouble because pumpkin pie - especially 'hard to come by in England' pumpkin pie - really needs whipped cream.  We tried using a fork for a little while but thank goodness my husband has a bit of MacGyver about him.  After a few minutes of rummaging through the utensil drawer, he came up with a tea strainer (not a tea ball but one like this) and attacked the bowl of cream again.  It worked!  So if you're in a pinch - no mixer, no whisk - we can attest that a tea strainer works. 

That night I also realized something a little upsetting when, thinking I would knit a few rows before bed,  I picked up my Gooseberry Cardigan.  It wasn't that my glaring mistake was still haunting me either - I finally ripped that back.  It was the discovery that when I knit, I hurt.  The muscles below my thumb start to burn after only a few inches of knitting.  It wasn't a sudden discovery - there's been faint pain for a little while now - but it had gotten to the point where I had to force myself to finish even one row and that was a real worry.  I cast on a Thorpe hat for my dad yesterday (because Christmas knitting stops at nothing) and knitting on large bamboo dpns didn't seem to bother me as much as I was able to get about a third of it done before I had to stop.  Thankfully it also seems that it doesn't effect crocheting at all.  It does effect typing on a keyboard, though, because it aches enough now that I'm not going to type much more. 

I'm knitting the cardigan on size six/4.00 metal needles and I know that metal needles have given me a little pain in the past - enough that I remember replacing a metal circular with bamboo on a project - but nothing like this.  I don't have a bamboo size six circular but ordered one yesterday because I'd really hate to send the cardigan to the UFO pile.  And, damn, I'm afraid of not being able to knit anymore.  I'm also going to watch some knitting videos and see if there's something I can change about my technique that might help.  It might be a really good reason to finally learn how to knit continental.

Hope that those of you who celebrate it had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

A Message for My Friends Back at Home

A Failed Wordless Wednesday

I had originally taken this mediocre photo for Wordless Wednesday but found it hard to post without explanation.  This is our tiny upstairs half-bath which sits next to our bedroom on the second floor.  We have grand ideas for it but currently it's just functional and there's a large patch of destroyed wall and exposed pipe above the toilet where they were looking for a leak.  

The Keep Calm poster came free in a newspaper and has been hanging around the flat since my visit last November.  I found it in a desk drawer a few weeks ago and decided it would be a nice reminder as I walk up the steps and into the bedroom.  

These days it seems I need to be reminded a little more often....

George

 

George would like nothing more than to be a security guard at the Salisbury Cathedral but, sadly, this position does not exist.

Big Blue by Roxycraft

4.00 mm (G) hook

Vanna's Choice in Pea Green

I don't think the top and bottom halves of his head are attached correctly but the pattern wasn't quite clear enough for me and the photos were, unfortunately, at an unhelpful angle. It makes him have less of an under bite and more of an all over alien look but it also makes him mine.  Otherwise, though, it's a great pattern and would make a cute Christmas gift for a little one (minus the plastic pellets he's stuffed with, of course).

Wow, I haven't crocheted much since I left Dainty Kitty to become Viking Tea Party - I had to create a "crochet" category for this post.

Owning My Mistakes

If I were reading Cast Off by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee instead of listening to it, I might actually quote her word for word but it's one of those audiobooks so I'll have to paraphrase.  You know the part where she talks about the two kinds of knitters?  The ones that would painstakingly search for the mistake if she got to the end of a row and had an extra stitch and the others who would just knit two together?  Well, I'm kind of a combination of the two.  In that instance I would probably just knit two together because, most likely (in my mind anyway), it wouldn't be noticeable.  If, after a few rows, it did become noticeable, though, I would be forced to rip it out - cursing myself with every stitch for not fixing it right away - because I would see it every time I looked at it and it would drive me crazy.   

That said, I'm really struggling with a mistake I made last night.  I was working on my Gooseberry Cardigan and using these evil things to mark my increase stitches.

I don't know what made me use them - they must have been handy when I cast on - because I usually only use them for crochet projects.  I hate that they get snagged in the knitting and some times trick you into thinking they belong one place when they really belong in another.  That's exactly what happened to me last night.  This little circle of doom got a little unruly so I pried it out and put it back, 99% sure, where it belonged.  I even made note to double check when I completed the next row which I totally did and things looked fine.  Several rows later, though, I realized I should have relied on that 1% of nagging doubt because the stitch maker was off by one stitch.

My Photoshop skillz are limited (but I'm learning!) and Matt is at work so I'm on my own but the errant stitches are kind of from one tip of the arrow to the other.  Note I'm now using snag-free stitch markers.

After agonizing over it for several minutes - looking up and down the needle at the multitude of stitches I would have to take out and wondering if I would end up loosing my increase row if I just took if off the needle to rip back four rows or if I would have to unknit each individual stitch - I decided to try just moving it back over where it should be.  After the first couple of rows I found that it was nearly imperceptible but, after a couple more, it became a little more obvious and it started to really bother me. 

I almost pulled if off the needle, crossing my fingers that I wouldn't loose the increases, but it was nearly one a.m. and both Matt and I decided it was better to sleep on it and make a decision in the morning.  I also took a good look at the pictures of the finished sweater because I'm only a couple of inches into the yoke (it's top down) and, after you finish the body, you pick up stitches and knit the collar...which hangs down over the yoke by several inches (photo courtesy of Interweave Knits). 

See what I'm getting at?  The collar is, most likely, going to cover up my mistake.    

That said, I'm trying to convince myself to carry on.  After I few more inches I'll be far enough beyond the mistake that I won't be forced to view it/torture myself with each and every row.  Unfortunately, though, I can't be completely convinced and am going to let it rest for a day while I consider it/torture myself a little longer.

What would you do? 

 

A Strange Grocery "Trip" and a Few Thoughts About the Holidays

The other day fellow ex-pat, Phoe, kindly sent me a link to an online, UK based store that sells hard to find American groceries.  Strangely, just a few hours earlier, Matt and I had been discussing Thanksgiving and I was saying I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to find canned pumpkin.  I don't know how they make pumpkin pie here or if the whole UK has something against it (gasp) but pumpkin pie - my mother's pumpkin pie anyway - is one of my very favorite desserts.  I'd rather have it than birthday cake - birthday cake from Taste of Elegance/ele Cake Co. even (although it's a close tie).  Thanksgiving is not Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie - even if it's a Thanksgiving that's being celebrated in a country that doesn't have Thanksgiving. 

Anyone that might be trailing us on a trip to Tesco knows that Matt and I are serious impulse shoppers so within minutes of perusing the website, we placed an order that arrived this morning (before I'd even had a chance to shower - I hate that).

 

We can now have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving (and Christmas)!  We also ordered some barbecue sauce to make barbecue chicken pizzas because the sauce here is just too sweet.  It's not our favorite flavor but it is our favorite brand so I know it'll be good.  The Jello Instant Pudding is the not-so-secret ingredient in my chocolate chip cookie recipe.  Each batch takes a box but I think I may stretch it and use a half box for each.  The Junior Mints are just because I miss Junior Mints (even though After Eights are pretty close) and the candies are some UK sweets they threw in which is, um, sweet.

All this talk of the holidays, along with the Christmas decorations that are popping up everywhere, is really Getting Me Down.  I checked ticket prices to go home for Thanksgiving the other day and they were reasonable enough (although,only two or three days later, they've already gone up £25) but I just didn't think it was a good idea for me to go home.  I've spoken the words "I might not come back" out loud without entirely meaning them but still meaning them a little bit.  I'm having a lot of trouble and a lot of that feeling is because I didn't take the decision to move here as seriously as I should.  Not that I wouldn't have done it anyway, I would (most likely), but I would have realized how important it was to give up my family and everything I've known for the past 35 years.  I spent the entire summer with this vague feeling that this was all happening to someone else (that's the only way I can explain how easy it was) but now I'm painfully aware that it was me all along.  Don't get me wrong, living here isn't "a jail sentence," as Matt kind of joked the other night as we talked about going home for Thanksgiving, it just isn't home yet. 

This topic of going home for Thanksgiving only came up because we're not going to Ohio for Christmas.  It was insanely expensive to ship my cats so it's just not possible this year.  This fact crushes me and is the reason I'm having so much trouble.  I think I'd be in a better state if I'd had more time to get used to my new life in general without having the most family oriented holiday come up within first few months.  I know eventually you have to start your own family and your own traditions but, after waking up at my parents' house (my house for a lot of those years) for 35 Christmases, waking up in an entirely different country, knowing that I'll only see my family on a video chat...I can't even think about it without fighting off tears or downright sobbing.   

That said, I should probably stop trying to ruin an otherwise perfectly good Friday, take a nice hot shower and start prepping the conservatory for the light but bright yellow paint we bought on Wednesday.  We'll give it a couple of coats tomorrow, finally unpack some of my decor and make it a nice cozy room in which to have a Thanksgiving dinner for two. 

Eureka! At Last, the Perfect Flapjack!

I was totally thrown the first time Matt ordered a flapjack at the Mill on my very first day in Salisbury last November.  In the US "flapjack" is just another term for "pancake" so I was surprised when they brought this strange little oat-y square to the table on a little plate.  It didn't take long for me to fall in love, though, and Matt not only brought several Chunky Chocolate flapjack bars (yum) from M&S when he came to visit but he even posted some to me.  I love flapjacks. 

I've tried making them several times and only twice did they turn out inedible.  Once when I made them when I still lived in the US and couldn't get my hands on any Golden Syrup and recently when I couldn't read my own recipe since I'd made so many changes and I doubled the brown sugar.  Little hockey pucks both times.  My other attempts were really good but a little too crumbly for my taste.  I tried a little more butter this time, a little more oats that time and a wee little bit more Golden Syrup another time.

Little did I know that I wouldn't find the right recipe until I made them with Matt who decided we should add a lot more Golden Syrup. 

What is Golden Syrup?  Wikipedia calls it sugar syrup and a pale treacle; I call it heaven.  Whatever it is, there's nothing like it readily available in Ohio and it's what makes a flapjack a flapjack.

Matt just pointed out to me that that is a dead lion on the can.  I'd never taken a close look it it and thought it was just the side of a standing lion.  Nope, he's dead and surrounded by a swarm of bees.  I found this explanation on the Lyle's website:

Abram Lyle [the man who started the company in 1921] had strong religious beliefs, which is why the Lyle's Golden Syrup trademark depicts a quotation from the Bible. In the Old Testament (Book of Judges 14:14) Samson was travelling to the land of the Philistines in search of a wife.  During the journey he killed a lion, and on his return past the same spot he noticed that a swarm of bees had formed a comb of honey in the carcass.  Samson later turned this into a riddle: "Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness". 

However, no-one knows why Abram chose the wording 'Out of the strong came forth sweetness'.  Was he referring to the tin holding the syrup - or the company producing it?

Interesting but I could have done without realizing the lion was dead.  Thanks, honey.  ;)

The closest you could probably get to a flapjack in the US would probably be baked oatmeal.  In texture it's more like a granola bar than baked oatmeal but the taste is fairly close and I just love baked oatmeal.  I had a really great recipe but it's stored on my desktop computer and, unfortunately, it's still in a box on the floor behind me.  This seems like it might be close, though.

And here is my flapjack recipe (if you can call two lines a recipe, that is).  I'm sure it's like a million others out there but this is the one I like best.  Matt gives it his stamp of approval, too.  

Viking Flapjacks

Slowly melt 80g light brown sugar, 110g butter and 110g Golden Syrup over low heat and stir well.  Stir in 300g jumbo oats and press into a buttered tin and bake at 180 C/350 F for 25 minutes.

I've added dried apricots several times with yummy results and we bought some dried cranberries last night so I'm looking forward to throwing those in next time.  Not very surprisingly, though, we're out of oats.  I'll have to take care of that tomorrow for sure because there are only two flapjacks left in the kitchen!

P.S. Speaking of flapjacks - this is really cute!

Wordless Wednesday: A Few November Mushrooms