Friday 15th January - Mmmmmm

 That was the letter for today, Mmmmm.

We have discovered the pannetone left over from Christmas, hiding in a dark corner of the hall, and also a large bar of Toblerone that I was gong to use for home-made chocolate truffles, but never got round to.

We bought our first microwave in 1986. It transformed meal-making in a hurry for hungry impatient babies and toddlers; one child-rearing book I read had the simple mantra

microwave - freezer - microwave - baby

and it proved to be so true. The technology was so different that cook books were required, and I invested in a couple while I got my head round this miraculous machine.

One thing that caught my eye was this;

Chocolate fondue; (Sainsbury Microwave Cooking by Lorna Rhodes)

250g / 8oz Toblerone broken in pieces

142ml / 5 fl oz double cream

put these in a bowl and microwave on MEDIUM for 3 minutes, stirring while cooking, until melted

This does make a lovely rich fondue to serve with fruit and marshmallows.

I misread the recipe and heated it all on HIGH - it didn't matter then when microwaves were lower power, but would probably matter more now.

HOWEVER, if you also have a bar of dark chocolate to hand you can add this to the mix - how much? I'm not sure, probably all of a 100g bar, you get a much thicker mixture, which will set firm when chilled.

Then you can scoop out teaspoonfuls and roll them in cocoa power to make chocolate truffles to give to people, and to yourself, as presents. 

We have skipped the 'making truffles' stage and are just eating the Toblerone neat.

 In other news, Brexit has already hit this household in the most irritating fashion. Our printer reached the end of its useful life over Christmas, so we ordered a replacement, and were given a delivery date of 12th January. However, the printers are made in the Netherlands. 

We can track the progress of our printer from the factory to our house; the delivery date has moved a couple of times but that is not a great problem. There's not a lot of difference between the 12th and the 15th, after all. However the date has now disappeared to be replaced by a message stating that the hold up is at customs because of incomplete paperwork. I have a feeling that this is going to be a common problem in the next few months.

It has lead to complicated discussions on how we can use the tech we have in our house (quite a lot) to make it possible for me to read the music (which I am now unable to print copies of) on one screen, and still have two screens set up for the zoom. Two? Yes; after six months of having the screen side-on to show the keyboard, and me sitting in a contorted position as though I am squashed into one of those magician's boxes for sawing a lady in half, I have changed to having a screen on top of the piano I can talk to, and another at the side to show the keyboard. Goodbye neck ache, back ache! I should have done this ages ago.  I am getting more and more techy by the minute. 

I did get out for a walk; this time I loaded myself down with 2.5kg of books in my bag. Why? That's the weight of the light-weight oxygen concentrator that I have my eye on. I did 230 m in the first 6 min walk (without using oxygen) which is uphill, and later was surprised that I managed 280 m in a second test on the way home (downhill!). If 2.5 kg makes this difference, it makes it appear more worthwhile to try and shed a few pounds in how much I weight. I must give this some consideration once we have finished the pannetone and the toblerone bar.

   

Easter Monday - 9th April - Computers

You would never know that there are four people and two cats in this house. We are all in the different corners, probably all tapping away on our different computers.

Hang on a minute there. Four computers? In one house? That's amazing.

Count again; there is also "the old laptop" which is still functional, but, as is it over seven years old, can't be trusted from one day to the next. That makes five computers. There are a further two computers jostling for space which are in the process of being repaired or rebuilt for friends.

I remember my first job as a lowly minion in the computer department of a large water authority. A team of highly trained technicians, working round the clock, attended to the needs of a 1K mainframe housed in a climate-controlled space the size of a small chapel.  

We bought an Amstrad quite early on. I don't suppose the "children" (both around a quarter of a century old now) remember a time without having a computer at home. They were playing "Maths Rescue" in the early 90s, and using a weird little word processor that we acquired somewhere along the line.

Computers have taken over huge areas of our lives; letters=emails; photocopies=scan and print; notebook and pencil=Word documents; family budgets= Excel; catalogues=online shopping; reference books=Google.

It is amazing to think that every day I move seamlessly between technologies that are hundreds, even thousands of years old (knitting, cooking, reading books, playing the piano) and ones that had never even been thought of until maybe a year ago.

(Can't wait to upgrade my smart phone for the next model as soon as my contract lets me!) 

Sunday March 11th - experimental uploading

I chose to use blogger instead of Livejournal becuase of all the difficulties I had with getting pictured into my posts. At the moment I go through several hoops to get pictures from my phone to the PC and then into my posts; but I have just spotted an option to upload directly from my phone. So here goes;
......
Well, that was exciting. I pressed "cancel" rather than "install", as I need to think about it. It is a Google+ app, that will take control of a whole load more of my life. I expect I will probably go ahead, (line of least resistance) but for the moment I'll continue to jump through the hoops.

Here are the pictures that I thought I would post;

Rosemary shrubs in flower above the Quarry Carpark in Guildford last Saturday

Tiny daffodils and irises by the front door