My New BFF ...................

is Mr Kenwood!  (Shhh, don't tell Mr J!!)  Mr Kenwood and I have become very close over the past couple of days, although we have had some disasters!  He is playing nicely again, and I have been able to produce some 'nice things'.

Disaster #1 - Macaroons - epic fail !  I couldn't get the balloon whisk to adjust to the way it should be working, lots of spanner use, expletives by the dozen and a failed gooey green mess (I completely forgot my primary school days of mixing red and yellow together and it would equal green!), I was trying to get it to a 'pinkish' colour!

Disaster # 2 - sponge cake - again, not sure if it was the whisk, or my ineptitude at making sponge cake!  I had greased the pan with coconut oil - not sure if it made a difference, but I ended up with a half sponge/half concrete cake which was only realised once the jam and cream had been put in the middle.  Fortunately we managed to rescue the jam and cream and put it to one side with the promise of fruit scones.

So............. my achievements:

Fresh Cheese Scones, which were light and airy and just scrumptious, I was very proud of these!







Next up I made a sponge cake that actually looked and tasted like one, it was from the Kenwood cook book I got with the Chef.

I also made some fruit scones to go with the afore mentioned jam and cream.  It was like a proper old fashioned Sunday tea!

Mr J wasn't too happy with the 'Buttercream' icing - as it was made with butter and cream-cheese, I followed the recipe, but to him this wasn't Buttercream, it was my 'American Frosting' - oh well you can't please all the people all of the time!!

Little mother enjoyed her cream tea, think child in a sweet shop - her little eyes lit up, but I'm not sure how much she actually had, as there was quite a lot on the floor too!!

Who dropped the bomb?

I hate to admit it, but I'm a messy cook!  Mr J hates being in the kitchen with me, and when I have a day like yesterday, he just shakes his head, turns around and leaves the kitchen - is it any wonder, as you can see from the pictures !!!!

This brings me nicely to 'a note to self'':  Do NOT use icing sugar without the splashguard on!! 

It will surely end in disaster !!! 

Mr Kenwood has also had a good run with the blender, a swift 'whoosh' and my Thai Butternut Squash soup was done!

He also came up trumps with the 'Captain Hook', no kneading or anything !  

So peeps, have a great week whatever you're doing and always remember that Spring is almost here !! 

PS:  not much knitting this week, but I have finished knitting the body of Candy Bear !! 

Lots of lovely things!!

It's been exciting here the past few days due to the arrival of my 'New Baby', all 6kg of her !!!

I am now in possesion of a fabulous Kenwood Chef Titanium!!

First up was using the processor to slice my leeks nice and fine for making my Hairy Bikers Chicken, Ham and Leek pie - it was a doddle, so quiet compared to my last processor !!

Here she is in all her splendor !  Ta dah !!

Sunday we decided it was time to make a cake, and looking at the ingredients we had in the cupboard, we decided to make our own variation of Black Forest Gateaux ( I say we, It's the Royal 'we', as in me and my wonderful husband Grahame!) It was a dense cake, but tasted light, I think next time I'll do it in 2 tins.  It was smothered in cherries in kirsch and then cream on the top - I think we can make some improvements !!








The only drawback was that after not having much wheat and dairy for the past few weeks, I really felt heavy and bloated after eating it, very interesting!

Today I made my first ever Mayonnaise - this recipe claims to be 'foolproof', and it was !!!   Not too bad tasting either !











Knitting wise I've started making a Bear by the very talented Susan at Mary Jane's Tea Room, I think she's going to be very cute!!!

It's been 'Hitty Missy' !

It's been a fun and exciting few weeks........................

I was doing particulary well with my no sugar, gluten etc and bought Jason Vale's Super Juice Me book with all intentions of 'giving it a go'.  I bought all the ingredients, did the first few days, but then I was hungry and it was becoming a faff to clean the juicer.  Although I have to admit that juicers have certainly improved since I had one over 15 yrs ago!!

Then there was a trip to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival, not easy to go sugar, gluten free when you are given free Walker's shortbread on the train and so many nice 'yummy's' at the festival!!

So it's been hard to get back into the swing of things.

My trip to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival was really good.  Much nicer to have everying at an inside venue, well laid out, nice vendors, wide range of woolly goodness and far too much temptation!!

My first stop was at Nicole and Cordula's wonderful Dye for Yarn stall, I though I would do a lot of damage here, but unfortunately there was no fingering/4ply Tussah Silk, which was probably just as well!!

However, I did buy a lovely laceweight Mulberry silk in a steely grey called 'Titan' with the intention of making Bloody Dream, which I saw made up on the stall.





Next up was Old Maiden Aunt Yarns, where I saw a gorgeous 2 tone grey Westloop Shawl and of course had to buy the yarn to make that !!

One stall I kept going back to was Eden Cottage Yarns and kept looking at their Aisling Shawl Kit 

© Eden Cottage Yarns

Well of course I had to get the kit - it would have been rude not too - right?

It seems I bought more than I thought !!!   I also got a signed copy of Lucy Hague's Celtic Cable Shawls and I can't wait to cast on one of these!! 

All in all a good day !!!

Time to update The Blog !

So, since I've been MIA for some time, I decided it was time to update the blog and try to write as much as possible.

Zoom forward 4 years:

Fibromyalgia is still horrendous

Back injury at work - resulting in surgery and numerous injections

Retired from Nursing and redeployed to Admin (Thanks a lot!) and reduced salary by almost 10 k a year ! 

Mother in-law diagnosed with Parkinson's and then Parkinson's related Dememtia.  Also lost her mobility from some strange quirk of the Parkinson's.

Gave up work to look after MIL who came to live with us just 5 weeks ago

Trying to adjust food and lifestyle to help with pain and daily challenges of looking after a frail, elderly person

That's it in a nutshell !! ! 

The plus sides are that I have taken up knitting and produced some lovely things, have started Crochet and my aim is to challenge myself with that this year by making a 'Sophie's Universe' by Dedri Uys at Look at What I Made and a Cosy Blanket by the Lovely Lucy at Attic 24  both very talented ladies! 

Am also following Deliciously Ella in an attempt to go wheat, sugar and dairy free - stay with me, it's going to be one hell of a journey!!!

And look what just arrived today !! 

Fibermyalgia !!

Can't believe it's nearly the end of January!!!

I started with more spin-outs on New Years Eve, I think this was brought on by stress, work had been busy and short staffed.  From there I headed into 'Fibro meltdown', pain, tiredness the lot!!  Not much fun.

Am seeing my Dr every 2 weeks, and my Pregabalin has been upped to 100mg 3 times a day.  And I am back on the dreaded Fluoxetine.  This upset me greatly as I had fought for so long to come off them and had been off them for a year.   However, I have to accept that research shows that there is a very definite link between Fibro and low Serotonin levels and Fluoxetine will hopefully help with the apathy that is 'I can't be bothered', with anything................... including my darling husband.  Fortunately I'm lucky in that he is very supportive - he came up with the 'Fibermyalgia' thing when I told him my blog was a mixture of knitting and fibro!!

On the knitting front, Mother in-laws 'sweater of doom' was finally finshed last weekend, 15months after I first started it!  My first project when I started knitting again, so it was fairly 'blah', and was knitted with an 82yr old in mind!!

I'm still trying to master lace knitting, and my big project is the Samhain shawl by Renee Leveringtong, it's hard going and it's beaded too, I appear to take back more rows than I knit, and that gets hard when you have 200+ stitches!!!  So, I finally learned to use lifelines, but that's still a PITA. In between is a lovely pattern by Evelyn Clark, the Karin shawl, done in a luscious deep red Wollmeise - yes - I got some Wollmeise - the much sought after yarn.  Have to say, it's lovely, beautiful tight twist.

I am also mastering the art of cables, in the form of the Fireside sweater, inspired by the one worn by Cameron Diaz in the film 'The Holiday' and a Lord of the Rings inspired Cardigan called Arwen.

It's been so long !!

It's been a funny summer, finally got my Fibro under control, thanks to the wonders of a drug called Pregabalin - great stuff - I almost feel 'human' again, or as human as I'm ever going to get !!!

Life has been good, I've been to the most wonderful 5* Hotel in Italy, in the South Tyrol, close to the Austrian and German Borders, the weather was amazing, the food was fantastic, and I had a great chill out time with my friend Amanda. Only problem was - coming back !!!

I've over committed on the knitting front - 2 baby cardigans for my lovely friend Cheryl who has just had a new baby, Socks for a swap, 2 pairs of socks for SKA, one by Nancy Bush - a mystery sock in yellow !!! The 2nd a Wendy Johnson sock, which has been a real challenge for me, as it's a toe up, magic cast-on, and magic loop - whoa !! I'm a dpns, cuff down girl !! Wasn't happy with the first attempt, so ripped that, now on attempt No 2, much happier with it, but not too happy with the M1 on the first and last stitch of the row - will need to tighten it up on my next sock I think.

Then I've been working on my mother in laws sweater since last year, and only have the sleeves to do, a cardigan for me in Rowan summer tweed - just have the sleeves to do ( I sense a trend here!), my Travelling Woman Shawl, and my Sun and Moon socks. Not to mention the stuff I'm doing for a halloween swap and then there's Xmas - where did the year go ?

I have also realised I have far too much stash (is that possible?), and not enough needles (is that possible??) as I try to turn my dining room back into a dining room, as I turned it into a knitting/craft room. But now I need it for friends coming up next week for the Great North Run.

Oh and the suitcase is still unpacked in the middle of the bedroom floor and I start night duty tomorrow night !!

Horrendous...............

Last night I had another 'spin out', around 8ish I started to feel dizzy, lost my balance again, felt sick and had a horrible sensation in the right side of my head with pressure behind my eye. I'm scared, the sensation is awful. I managed to get to bed and zonked out until 11pm, got up had a drink and went back to bed until I woke at 5am.

I think I'll call the hospital today to see if there is any result from my MRI scan