Well, we’ve survived a week of fulltime school. Maggie has settled easily and well, if secretively. If she is to be believed she has been having some very peculiar school dinners (yet coming home with a daily sticker for eating it all, so I tend to think her accounts of just lettuce and tomato sauce, or just a biscuit, are slightly fictional) and she has grazes on knees and elbows. PE was fun and she is making friends. Even I was found standing in a chatting circle of mums at the school gate on Friday: I felt very included. In a nice way. She’s tired, with bedtime tears, but so far not as bad as I had expected. And so looks just gorgeous in her little uniform.

I was prepared to struggle with the early starts – but that has, so far, been easier than anticipated. Once I got my head round having to be out of bed by 7.30 (it is early for us) then we’ve just done it. I was unprepared for suddenly finding myself with a toddler to entertain:  I hadn’t appreciated just how much the girls play together and all of a sudden Tamsin wants me to play with her. She is delighted when Maggie gets home (she holds her arms up and says yay! when I say it is time to go and collect her). I have a few toddler activities lined up – mostly on a Wednesday which is just manic with swimming (T), rhythm time (T) and ballet (M) one after the other. We tried storytime at the library but I was a bit unimpressed (one story then they got out the instruments and bunged on a CD of children’s songs). I very much want to incorporate allotment visits into our week too: I just need to do it for a bit and it will (probably) fall into place.

We had a lovely anniversary night out in Liverpool: the streets were shut for la machine and we were half an hour early for the restaurant (actually half an hour late into town – we had intended having a drink first – because the roads were flooded) so we walked down and had a look at it, then had a gorgeous meal at Etsu. After a bit of to- and fro-ing they even made me an off-menu lemon sour (shochu, soda and freshly squeezed lemon). Most of the restaurant was occupied by the Japanese FA so it felt really nostalgic with Japanese banter going on behind us. Tamsin, little sod that she is, slept through the entire night 8-7 without a peep for her aunty Sara, then did the same for us on Saturday. (To put this into context: she has done this twice before in her entire little life, at 3 months old. So that’s, what, 19 months of broken sleep.) Back to normal since, with 2.30 the favoured time to summons me (yawn).

It’s green, but if you can get past that it is good (I suppose if it bothered you you could peel the courgettes. But I kind of like green cake.) Recipe ripped off from somewhere, obviously, but I can’t remember where to give credit.

200g butter
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
150g courgettes
200g plain flour
pinch salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
large pinch cinnamon
100g sultanas

Set oven to 180C and line a loaf tin.
Cream the butter and sugar; mix in the beaten eggs. Grate the courgettes, squeeze to remove any excess juice then stir into the mixture. Add the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon and mix well. Add sultanas; put in tin and bake for about an hour*. Cool in the tin before turning out.

*The hour was definitely from the recipe – it takes about 40 minutes in my oven.

Pittenweem art festival last weekend. Mixed weather; Tamsin dislikes sand; most of the art the same as usual (in a good way) though I was enormously disappointed that Susan McGill‘s gorgeous black and white ceramics sold so quickly – mostly at her preview – and had to settle for a necklace instead of a candlestick. Hope she is there again next year. Saw Aunties Irene, Catherine and Rachel, and took the children to a ceilidh – it took M a while to want to join in but she enjoyed it once she did. Auntie Irene managed to charm Yoshihito Kawabata, one of the invited artists, who had made a stone circle on the pier, into presenting her with one of his pebbles but we failed to see him at all.

Back to the to-do list again once we got home, then on Friday I went into Liverpool with some friends to see the Klimt exhibition. It was not quite as I expected – my expectations being based almost entirely on this picture, which adorned the wall of nearly every student flat I ever lived in. It wasn’t there (but others were, which were similar and lovely, alongside some of his landscapes, which were lovely too, and a load of random articles by other members of the Viennese Secession, some of which were lovely and some not so lovely and none of which really seemed to have anything to do with Klimt apart from being made by people who knew him. And some other paintings by him, some of which were interesting and some not so interesting). Afterwards, dinner at Etsu, which has got all sorts of people talking. (The restaurant, not us having gone to it.) The word on the street, which I can back up now I have been myself, if that it is not posh but it is very authentic. We eschewed the Brit-friendly starter and main course set up and ordered plate after plate of starters; stuffed ourselves silly with gorgeous Japanese food and came home very happy indeed. Though I make better gyoza myself.

Japanese food again on Saturday as we went to the Hanyuda-sans’ leaving party. I feel very spoilt. And very full.

Just back in, and feeling the need to lie in a darkened room. Today’s plan had been the library until I cleverly remembered about the Unison strike. A diversion to soft play seemed clever, and also avoided the misery of town-on-the-bus-in-the-rain, only I somehow failed to realise (dur) that the schools would also be shut for the strike. Hell. On. Earth.

Blue horizontal stripes seem to be the last word in preschool chic, so once Maggie had gone she had gone, never to be seen again. Tamsin enjoyed the toddler area for a while – she doesn’t get to spend much time with toddlers so it was good having people to refuse to share with – but of course, being 20 months going on 4, wanted to play in the big bit. The slide at Wizz kidz* is very big and very fast, and there were an awful lot of children, so I had to go in too. Which was fine (actually it was good as we were all narky with each other this morning but have come home friends) but wasn’t exactly the lovely sit down with a coffee and a book I had envisaged when we left the house.

Thank you for your flapjack tips: I left the last batch in the tin overnight to get really cold and it was much better. You still very much needed a plate, as it disintegrates if you breathe on it wrong, but it can at least be attempted without a spoon. Today’s question involves bread: how do I make pumpkin seeds stick to the top? I can put them in the mix, which is fine, but when you buy a lovely expensive loaf from Betty’s, as I generally do when I visit my sister, it has seeds on the top too. I put them on but they never fail to drop off when I turn the loaf to tap the bottom. I’m wondering if I should be sticking them on with an egg wash, as their crust is a bit shiny.

*Why oh why?

Another allotment supper: we are having potato salad made with Charlotte potatoes, which are fantastic. I still have half a row of Epicure (“proper” new potatoes), which are absolutely delicious but require about 3 or 4 plants to be dug to get enough for a meal. One plant of Charlotte provided 1.4 kg today! I don’t know whether they are just a more prolific spud or if it is down to the layer of Pete’s special composty manure spread in the bottom of the planting hole. And you can see how lovely they look. Um, sorry, where was I…a potato salad made with Charlotte potatoes, dill and tarragon, and a shallot, all of which were grown with my own fair hands. You can also see some beetroot in there, and some assorted lettuce, which we will eat tomorrow.

Tamsin has learnt no!

Conscious that we have about 10 days to go before we go to sunny Scotland for a fortnight, I’ve been engaging in some rapid-fire allotmenteering, dashing down for the hour or so between children-in-bed and too-dark-to-dig. I got my maincrop potatoes in on Saturday – that’s fine, the pack said to plant between March and May so 8.30 pm on the 31st May is well within that window. Percy Thrower would have something to say about my planting method (dig trench in the middle of the weeds, pulling out the worst of the roots. Scatter spud fertilizer; use bulb planter to put potatoes in. Earth up with weed roots) and they are definitely closer together than they should be, as I didn’t have the strength to dig a second trench, but at least they are in and no longer regarding me reproachfully from the windowsill. Last night I flung in some borlotti beans: dug a big hole, filled it with lawn cuttings, back-filled with soil and weeds, put up a wigwam and put the bean plants in. You could almost hear them breathe a sigh of relief as they moved from 1-inch-diameter pots into the ground. They are thigh-high already, poor things. Next year I will sow them later.

Interestingly (to me, anyway) the purple french beans are happy wee things, growing up their poles and the new seeds I sowed have all germinated into nice little plants. The yellow ones, which are supposed to be going up alternate poles to make a lovely stripy wigwam, are pathetic. One has disappeared altogether (I’d blame slugs but my chief suspect is Mike-next-door’s overenthusiastic weedkilling on the path between us). The seeds have either not germinated at all or have come up to be eaten.

My raised bed, however, is a joy and a triumph. I must photograph it before I eat too much of its contents. (The photograph up there, by the way, is not a bouquet but some purple flowering bok choi, which was lovely in last night’s thai-curry-cum-stirfry. Unlike the aspragus which was just wrong.)

Some loafy disasters this week.

I decided to see last night’s “unmissable” match as an opportunity to zip to the allotment – I occasionally do, once the children are in bed, but rarely without feeling some twangs of conscience at leaving the allotment-widower at home (even though I think he quite likes it). Yesterday, as official football-widow myself, no conscience. (And I’d be there again tonight trying at long last to get those very late potatoes in, were it not raining. Gah. Instead I find myself at home, another “unmissable” match on – this one causing much tension and stress – with a pile of ironing and a casserole to make. The joys.)

Left reasonably simple instructions regarding my lovely homemade bread: take it out when the oven beeps.

(You can see where this is going, can’t you.)

(You are right.)

It cooked for 2 hours and I came home to a blackened charcoaly lump smoking gently in the oven.

Today’s loaf stuck fast to its tin. (I prised it off with a pie-slice; only lost a small layer from the bottom crust.) They come in threes, right – so one more mistake then I can get back into making nice bread again.

On a nice note, I spent yesterday afternoon at the Bluebell cottage garden. Sadly camera-less – I have my hands quite full enough thank you with two small children and they have ponds – we had a lovely time admiring the garden then buying plants while the girls ran amok, then to the wildflower meadow where they really could run free. Mostly buttercups at the moment and absolutely glorious: up to M’s waist (T’s head) and what children are supposed to do!

What are we kitchen goddess types to do when faced with the last day of preschool before the holidays and an elder daughter, whose very name means blossom, with a birthday mid-holiday? Why, blossom biscuits of course!

They looked rather better before the icing was applied, as you could see the authentic cherry-blossom shape. (But she is nearly 4 and minimalism just will not do: they had to be Pink. Though she took some persuading that they shouldn’t be pale pink with dark-pink middles; her expectations exceed my abilities.) The boys at preschool may refuse*, so we made a few white ones too. And they would have been somewhat improved had I not all but run out of plain flour, meaning we had to make them with wholewheat with the bits sieved out (I’ll get a reputation as a nutrition nazi down the nursery). But I think they are cute and seasonal, so there.

*Paddy likes pink, apparently. The other, less-assured boys are more batman and ninja turtles.

I’ve been out three times this week! Which from a standing start of not-at-all-after-dark for a whole year, is quite something. Monday, Sara and I went to a carol concert at the cathedral (you surely didn’t imagine I’d been on the razzle), which was lovely if utterly freezing. Proper carols and a bit of John Rutter: just the ticket. Tuesday, I stayed at home for a jolly evening of editing (until quarter to sodding eleven) punctuated by intermittent running up and down stairs to see T, who was most restless and now has a cold. Cameron went out (we are like the weather people). Wednesday I went to Sara’s festive girl’s night – Sara is like a bus too; don’t see her for ages then it is every day for a week – getting a taxi home! See me get the hang of socialising again! And last night Sara babysat while C and I went to see Beowulf. In 3D, which was very cool – we had to wear silly glasses and everything. The film itself…well, Mia’s review sums it up rather well: it is very silly, I giggled at his sahf lahndon “I’ve come ter kill yer monstah”, and the strategically positioned candlesticks are hilarious. I can’t believe it got a 12 rating as it was quite explicit and very gruesome in places, and Grendel was rubbish and just not creepy at all. Fun, though!
In between, I made stollen. Anybody who is anybody is making it this year: Christmas cake is just so 2006. I followed Nigel’s recipe, because I love and trust him, but (apologies to Lisa (whose permalinks are knackered but try the 14th December: she made stollen too but not without a little dig at people who mess with recipes)) I did fiddle it a little. I used dried yeast because that is what I had – surely that is what everybody has – and a sultana catastrophe* meant I had to use cherries/peel/currants/cranberries/almonds as the filling, but that works very well. The cardamom is glorious in it but it is rather more bready/less cakey than stollens I have eaten previously. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
*The jar leapt from the cupboard in eagerness and smashed into a million tiny shards on the floor.

Does anyone know about dates?

No, no, the fruit.

Yes I know I could google it, or look it up on wiki, but I’d so much prefer it if one of you would tell me (or look it up for me) instead.

Here is what is worrying me. Are they dried fruit, like prunes and whatnot, or do they grow like that all brown and squashy and weird? If they are dried, what do they look like beforehand and why don’t you ever see them for sale? Are they bletted, perhaps (there’s a word I have always wanted to use and never previously found the occasion for)?

I bought some at the farm shop yesterday. Very Christmassy. The girls thought they were nasty (T threw hers on the floor with some force, M tried to wipe her tongue) – which surprised me, as they are very sweet. I ate mine, though not with enormous relish. One is nice: two, unnecessary.