...learning (a week's happenings)

Crocheting

I want to start by saying thank you to everyone for the lovely supportive comments on my last post.  It's a bit easier doing these things knowing people are behind you! The emotional support I've gained as part of our wee community over the past few years was at first (and still) unexpected and is very much appreciated.

Scotland in the sunshine

Granny square! You can see my tension improving !

Perfect chai latte, at home

                 

Our sunny street

So, last weekend (in Paisley) included;  frothy hot drinks using the milk steam on our coffee machine, lots of salad and pasta with pesto, chatting to neighbours, glorious sunshine, Jeffrey Eugenides' excellent 'The Marriage Plot', M&S' hot cross loaf, a big sort out of all the stuff in our bedroom storage - six binbags out, two more for charity, Neil Young's 'Harvest',  juice and cakes with my SIL and the Wee Smasher in town, lots of heavy duty gardening, Dave sorting the shed and making a table top for a (hideous) coffee table base that lives in said shed so that we could eat outside, my sister teaching me to crochet - i can do double and treble stitch and make a granny square - in the sunshine eating cake, reading in our lovely bright front room, listening to the radio. In short, we went to Paisley and actually lived in the flat. Generally we sleep there and spend the rest of the time running around trying to see lots of people. It was nice to have a homely weekend there. It made us much more sure about the decision.

This weekend(in Dundee) so far;; cheap and delicious noodles from the new noodle bar in town, drinks with Dave's colleagues and chats about couch surfing, peppermint tea, 'A Homemade Life' by Molly Weizenberg, Dave recording, a bit of sorting and packing, a walk into town, a food revelation at lunch in the form of a feta, spinach, avocado and sun-dried tomato salad on walnut bread (I will be recreating that for sure!),  and by some miracle producing a loaf from my own sourdough starter*.

Satay noodles and ginger beer. I love the wee cartons!

I am really, really enjoying this!

It has been a good couple of weekends. Tomorrow I will be making patchwork curtains for my middle charge's Wendy house, This week is busy at work, an then we are Paisley bound for a certain blogger's birthday party, and again, we hope to live there, not just sleep there. Now we know we'll be living there in September, we don't feel we need to rush quite so much to see everyone!

Happy rest of the weekend (and Monday off of you have it) lovelies!

SOURDOUGH!!!

*I used Tara Austin Weaver's instructions for sourdough. She has put massive time, energy and detail into her three blog posts about the process of beginning and feeding a starter, and then baking with it. She also has several other recipes using the starter. I used the third bread recipe, and used a third of the amounts required in the recipe, which made a small loaf. I also used wholemeal flour instead of a mixture of white and rye, and am pleased with the result ( though I need to work on getting more of a rise). It had the lovely crust, and is somewhat dense, moist, slightly sour bread. I have had really bad luck in breadmaking, and it's only this year I've really felt confident doing it, so to have made a sourdough loaf seems a huge thing to me.