Wednesday 2 December 2015

Tesco Christmas pudding - trial tasting

 I received a voucher from Tesco Orchard for £10 off their Finest Christmas pudding, which as they were on for half price got me two for free! One for us and one for foodbank.

The packaging was very attractive but I noticed some of the boxes were damaged, so picked out boxes that weren't. When I got the puddings home the cardboard package had buckled, because it couldn't support the weight of the heavy puddings. Not a big deal, but I'd expect better from the Tesco Finest Range.


We cooked the pudding in the microwave which took less than 10 minutes, so that would be perfect after a hectic Christmas dinner! We served it with custard, which went down a treat. The pudding had an excellent texture and flavour. Both my husband and I loved the addition of the nuts as it gave an extra crunch to the moist pudding. The fruit was very juicy and flavorsome. I found the alcoholic nature of the pudding a bit overwhelming, but my pudding loving husband thought it was just spot on! The pudding was very moreish, and we both wanted more than one slice! I'm not sure I'd manage more than one slice after a big Christmas dinner though. Overall I'd give the pudding a 4/5, because whilst it was tasty and easy to prepare I'm not sure it's worth £10.


I'm not cooking Christmas dinner this year, but I think i may end up in charge of pudding! ;)

Do you make your own Christmas pudding or do you buy it?

Thursday 5 November 2015

Incredibly Simple Cupcakes

I recently posted a youtube video showing you how to make cupcakes following the incredibly simple recipe that has been passed down from my great grandmother. This is one of my favourite recipes, one I make time and time again.



In this blog I'm going to give the full recipe, as well as some adjustments and experiments I've tried over the years that add a twist to these really simple cakes

Ingredients (makes about 16 cup cakes if using medium eggs)

2 Eggs
Self Raising Flour
Sugar
Butter
(optional) Baking Powder and Milk

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180 °C
  2. Weigh the eggs, still in their shells. Take note of this weight. This is the weight of flour, sugar and butter you will need (e.g. if your eggs weigh 200g, you need 200g of flour, 200g of butter and 200g of sugar).
  3. Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix until combined and the mixture drops from the spoon. Add a teaspoon of baking powder before mixing if you want the cakes to be extra fluffy. If the mixture doesn't get to the correct consistency, add a small splash of milk.
  4. Spoon into cake cases and bake for 15 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
  5. Leave to cool, and then decorate or simply dust with icing sugar.

Adaptions

Once you've mastered the basic recipe, making changes can keep things interesting. Below are cupcake variants that have been tried and tested by my friends and family.

Banana Cup Cakes - Replace 1 egg and some of the sugar with a ripe banana - These are even more delicious if filled with raspberry jam!
Chocolate Chip Cup Cakes - Add chocolate chips to mixture before baking
Cinnamon and Pecan Cupcakes - Add a teaspoon of powdered cinnamon to the cake mix, and decorate with whipped cream and pecans.

Have you got a favourite go-to baking recipe? Please comment and tell me what it is, I'd love to know!

Thursday 29 October 2015

Draft Letter to an MP about Refugee camps in Lesbos



I was recently moved to tears by this article in the Huffington Post about refugees in camps in Lesbos, where people are dying due to lack of shelter, supplies and medical help. I felt compelled to write to my MP, especially after learning that so much of the help given by people is not actually getting to the people who need it.

Writing to MPs is amazingly effective in bringing change and action. These people are paid (through our taxes) to act on the issues that are important to us. If we write to them, they will know what issues are important. I have never written a letter to an MP that has not received a reply, and I have sometimes had letters passed on to the policy maker in that particular area.

I have found it helpful when I first wrote to MPs to send a generic letter written by someone else. Sometimes I edited these letters, sometimes I just addressed them to my MP and sent them as is. I have included a generic template letter below (I added some more detail addressing my MP, because I have written to him before). Please use this letter to write to your MP; the more voices speak out, the more likely the government is to listen.

You can find your MP's name contact details here, just type in your post code.


Dear [MP's name]

I’m sure you, like I, have been distressed and concerned by the vast number of refugees attempting to flee from ISIS and find refuge in Europe. These men, women and children are only taking such long and dangerous journeys because they fear for their lives.

 I understand that the United Kingdom is offering help to a number of refugees who have not yet reached Europe. I also understand the government’s desire to focus aid for those who have not yet reached Europe, as those people are clearly the most vulnerable to attacks from terrorist groups. I fully support this action by the government, but feel that it is our duty to do more to help our fellow human beings.

Recently I have read about the plight of refugees who have already reached European soil. I was particularly moved by an article written by a charity worker, from a small charity Help Refugees, in the Huffington Post. She wrote of the horrific conditions in refugee camps in Lesbos, where people are dying of starvation, dehydration, exposure and disease. She wrote of children who’s feet are literally rotting away, because they are sleeping outside in the cold and rain and do not have access to clean, dry clothes. I was surprised to read that there is very little presence in these camps of large charities or of government help. There are little or no medical facilities. People who have reached the “safety” of European soil are dying, and will continue to die if nothing is done to provide proper shelter, provisions and medical help, especially as winter approaches. This is a matter of great urgency.

I urge you to raise this issue with anyone who can help. Although people are donating money and items to charity the charities are not getting to the people who need them because of government policy and red tape. I am unsure if UK policy is affecting this, or if it is the local governments where the camps are located. Either way, I urge you to talk to our own government and ambassadors for other governments, so that we can do everything possible to prevent these people from dying.


I am sure that you will take any action you can to save the lives of these people.


Yours Sincerely

 [Your name]
P.S. The article in question can be read online here. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/lliana-bird/refugee-crisis-lesbos_b_8388988.html

Monday 26 October 2015

Eat well for less

I've really been enjoying the BBC's Eat Well For Less series. It's full of good advice about feeding a family healthily on a budget, as well as dispelling a lot of myths about food.

I've not found it overly helpful though, because as a family we're well within the normal spending range for our family (we're a couple, and spend about £40 a week on groceries, which is about average for a family of 2). We tend to cook our own meals, we've steered clear of takeaways since we came up with a meal plan, we don't usually buy branded products and we shop at a budget supermarket. Surely we can't make any more savings?

Then I came across the absolutely fascinating Facebook page! The people running this claimed they could feed a family of 4 for half of my budget. I genuinely didn't believe it. But I've been reading through their menus, and it seems with some careful planning a bulk buying you really can feed a family for as little as £20!

I'm not sure we have the storage space for 3 months worth of food (especially as our flat has issues with damp, and I wouldn't want to lose that much food if it went bad!) but I'm taking it as a personal challenge to get as close to £20 a week as possible. I'm going to try to buy a month's worth of freezables and non-perishables in advance, and then buy perishables week on week. I think initially it will be more like £30 a week, but we'll see where we'll get.

Do you have any top tips for buying in bulk? What about buying in bulk when you don't have a car (which we don't!) I'd love to hear them!

Thursday 15 October 2015

PLAYexpo Manchester 2015



Last weekend the husband and I went the PLAYexpo Manchester with some friends from church. We borrowed a friend's wheelchair as I wouldn't have been able to last more than an hour on my feet at an expo like that. I'm so glad we went as we had an amazing time!

There was a LOT to do, something I'm not really used to from attending MCM Expos. Not only did they have all the latest big name game releases, they also had lots of Indie game designers (I thoroughly enjoyed Unboxed, the Box simulator!) and more than half the hall was taken up with retro games. You name a console, you name an arcade machine, they had it. The selection of games on show to play was excellent, and I could easily have spent the day moving from table to table reliving childhood memories.

They also had a huge display of pinball machines, at least one of which had an open glass side so you could see the mechanisms inside. From my vantage point in the wheelchair I could actually see the sparks flying between switches as the machine was played with, it was awesome.


We, of course, went in cosplay, as Emmet and Wild Style from the Lego Movie (on the grounds that we've totally played the game of that film, and it was a good game!). I didn't make the tracksuit or the construction clothes, as all were cheap to buy, and my husband already had the blue shirt. I did however paint the tracksuit, style the wigs, and add all the detail to the Emmet costume. I loved the cosplay masquerade, and was pleasantly surprised by the very high standard of costuming!


If you want to see more about how I made the Emmet costume, you can check out my youtube channel here. Were you at PLAYexpo? What was your favourite part?

Tuesday 6 October 2015

Wedding Crafts

 My brother-in-law recently got married. Everyone had a great day. I helped with some of the organisation as well as reading a prayer on the day, and I did quite a lot of wedding related crafting for the special day!


I helped the bride make this seating plan, using card, paper and stick on butterflies! The wedding was Disney themed, and so I helped to print off text using a free Disney font I downloaded, as well as a picture of Ariel from the Little Mermaid getting married, to match the couples' wedding invitations.


They hadn't set up a gift list as they had already set up home together, but I really wanted to get them a thoughtful present they'd appreciate. I scoured the internet for ideas and eventually hit upon this little gem; maps of where the couple were born, met and married. This particular couple love to hang sentimental items on their walls, so I knew they'd appreciate this. After finding a suitable frame I cut the maps into heart shapes and decorated with pictures of flowers. I used little slips of coloured paper to add names and dates. (Top Tip: Check the details with a family member, I got the bride's place of birth wrong and am going to have to edit their present. Good job they have a good sense of humour ;) )

A quick google search will show lots of other ideas and suggestions around this map theme for newly weds. I particularly love map-crafts at the moment!


I also decided to add the finishing touches to my wedding outfit myself. I crocheted the simple shawl using granny stripes. I'm not a very skilled crocheted so it wasn't shaped, but I sewed on pink buttons to hold it in place. I deliberately chose some beautifully soft yarns that matched my dress. I used Yarn scraps to crochet the flower in my hair too, which I attached to a clip.

Tuesday 29 September 2015

Handmade Gifts for Guys

Having done numerous internet searches in the run up to birthdays and Christmas, I know I am not alone in finding it difficult to make gifts for the men in my life. Somehow it's easier to think of things to make for female friends and family, possibly because handbags, jewelry and scented candles can be given as many times as you like, as long as you pick a different design. Lots of lists for "gifts for men" are full of cliched, ugly, unhelpful ideas that would probably bore or insult a lot of the guys I know. This is a list of gifts that I have made and given that have been well received. Some of the suggestions may seem a little odd, but as with giving any gift, the best gifts are personal and thoughtful. If the friend is a little odd then the best gift will be too!

Food
Food is a welcome gift for everyone, man or woman!

Homemade food gifts are lovely, and there's lots of ideas. Chocolate bark is an easy, no bake idea and there are loads of recipes around. I tried Martha Stewart's S'mores bark recipe last Christmas and lots of people asked for more. The trick with making chocolate bark is to use good quality chocolate - you could go even further and find out your loved one's favourite chocolate brand to make sure the gift appeals to their taste!

For bakers in the family, why not give them all the ingredients for their favourite biscuit or cookie in a jar? Kids Chaos has the instructions for some delicious cookies, the ingredients of which look great when layered in a jar!

For those not inclined to cook, shop bought food thoughtfully selected can make a food hamper, especially when put in a home decorated box or basket. My dad loves Christmas Pudding, and so I sought out a tiny, single portion pudding, so he didn't have to share it! Good quality coffee, a posh brand of tea bags, a favourite sweet treat, or even a guilty pleasure (do they have a strange fondness for pot noodles and ketchup?) can make a gift funny and personal.

Remember to take into account any allergies or intolerances others have. Food gifts, especially of treats, given to people with allergies and intolerences are often doubly appreciated!

Hobby Gifts
Taking an interest in someone's hobby is a sure way to make a thoughtful gift. You can personalise gifts with applique or embroidery.

Sport: Small draw string bags for golf tees and balls.  The same could be true for other sports. A tennis racket cover with a pocket for balls for example.
Team Themed Gift: Sports fans love things that feature the colours or logos of their favourite team. I used the free patchwork bear pattern from McCall's to make this Wigan Athletic bear for my brother, and this idea could easily be adapted to suit any sports team.


Cooking: Try an apron, oven gloves, potholders or a personalised tea towel.
Outdoors: Crochet or knit a warm hat, gloves or scarf for those who love to be outdoors. Fingerless gloves or wristers are great for those who like to do work with their fingers, such as gardeners, as it will keep their hands warm without impeding their ability to work with their hands. Fingerless gloves are also great for anyone who loves to write or type. This simple crochet tutorial is easy to follow along with and is adaptable to different striped patterns and sizes; make in your loved one's favourite colours.

One male friend of mine is an avid cosplayer, and I made him a sewing kit for Christmas, so he can repair any damage to costumes when he's away from home. This might not be a typical "masculine" present, but showing I understood his hobby was a great way to show I took an interest in his life.

Sewing a Gift: It's all in the fabric!
It's not just women who appreciate a homemade apron, quilt or cushion. Choosing a fabric thoughtfully makes all the difference.
My husband loves tartan fabrics, so I included lots of tartan squares when I made him this quilt.


My brother plays the guitar, so I took to ebay to find a guitar patterned fabric to make him a cushion.

Sometimes it can be expensive or difficult to get a fabric patterned with a particular theme, but you can usually find fat quarters on ebay for a couple of pounds. It's also worth keeping an eye out for special fabric when in the local fabric shop. If you can't get enough fabric to make a whole item, why not use a fat quarter to make a pocket or add some applique? Use a plain fabric in a matching or contrasting colour for the rest of the gift, and this can look very effective.

Tuesday 22 September 2015

Craft Organisation

I live in a small one bedroomed flat with my husband. I hate throwing things away, especially if it has craft potential, and so the amount of stuff in our flat can get a little overwhelming!

Storage space is at a premium, and I had completely run out of cupboards, draws and shelves. The solution? Make use of doors!

This door hanging storage was very easy to make. I used some orange canvas fabric I already had to make the backing on which to hang the pockets (I'd bought it very cheaply several years ago because it was stained). The bottom pocket is made from the back of a pair of jeans (left over from my patchwork quilt and cushion). This allowed me to use the pockets of the jeans as extra storage for small things. I used velcro to keep the largest pocket closed.The other pockets are made from cotton fabric I had knocking about, and I used cutoffs of patterned fabric to add extra details to the white pockets.






I riveted the top corners, and used old shoelaces threaded through the rivets to attach it to the door.

I'm using this to store my card making supplies and colouring books. The large bottom pocket has my colouring books and pens, the front jeans pocket has my colouring pencils. The other pockets contain card making supplied; paper stock, blank cards and envelopes, finished cards, and old birthday cards for butchering.

This has freed up storage space elsewhere in the house, and has definitely helped to clear my desk! It also used up some of my fabric supplies in the process!

What are your top tips for storage when space is at a premium?

Wednesday 16 September 2015

100 Days Until Christmas - Low Cost Christmas

It's 100 days until Christmas today! Christian's Against Poverty, a UK Charity that offers free debt help, are starting their debt free Christmas campaign today. I know Christmas starts earlier every year, and that the shops try to force seasonal spending on us for longer and longer periods. But thinking and planning ahead can save you a lot of money and stress, and today is a great time to start.

  1. Start Saving for Christmas - NOW

    With 100 days to go, if you get paid monthly you should have 3 pay days between now and Christmas. Set aside a little each month, and next year maybe start even earlier. Most big supermarkets offer schemes to save money if you shop with them every week in the run up to Christmas, so this could help, but switching to a more expensive supermarket to get this deal might actually cost you money, so be careful not to get dragged into spending more money on groceries than you normally would just to qualify.

  2. Set a Budget - STICK TO IT

    This can be hard, but decide how much you can afford to spend before you start planning what you buy. It can help if you write down what's most important to you about Christmas Celebrations. What would it not be Christmas without, and what is something you could maybe go without this year? Could you forgo the tree in favour of home made decorations? Or does no one in your house really like sprouts and turkey, and the family's favourite mexican food would be far more welcome? These ideas may sound odd, but Christmas isn't about doing everything everybody else does. Decide what's important to your family, and prioritise spending money on that, and don't spend money on the things that don't matter as much to you.

  3. Food

    Christmas is often a time of over indulgence when it comes to food, and I for one can see why! I love turkey, mulled wine, mince pies and pigs in blankets. I love socialising with friends over my favourite seasonal food. However, if you plan to go the whole hog with food, plan in advance how you will use the leftovers. Using leftovers in tasty meals will save money on normal grocery bills, and mean you can afford your seasonal favourites. Planning it before hand will also prevent you buying too much food that will just go to waste.
  4. Hand-make Gifts

    Crafters, take a deep breath, there's still 100 days to go! If you're going to make lots of hand made gifts you need to start early, as this is far more time consuming that just ordering from amazon. It can also be cheaper, and people are often very touched by homemade gifts. However, don't fall into the trap that handmade is always cheaper; we live in a world of mass production, and some things are far cheaper to buy. Other things, toys for example, are sometimes safer when bought, as they'll have been through stringent safety checks. Remember thoughtful is always more welcomed and remembered than big or expensive.

    I'll post some more blog posts in the coming weeks about giving thoughtful gifts.

    What are your top tips for a stress free, low cost Christmas?

Monday 7 September 2015

Rainbow Trout Recipes


I've recently joined Tesco Orchard, a scheme run by Tesco that lets you try products for free in exchange for reviews and opinions. I got my first voucher in the post this week for fresh fish. I was delighted, as I've been trying to get more Vitamin D into my diet to help the MS, and I knew fish could help.

After a quick google search the fishmonger was able to recommend rainbow trout as a fish high in Vitamin D, so I decided to use the voucher to try it out!

With the help of my husband we cooked two delicious fish dishes.

Having not cooked much fresh fish before we cheated and went for a pre-made sauce! We settled on a Schwartz Sweet Chilli, Lime and Coriander sauce, and it was scrummy.

We rubbed the trout with olive oil, salt and pepper, before wrapping in tin foil and baking at 200C for 25 minutes. We served this with the sauce, boiled potatoes and green beans.


We had two fillets left, and so the next night we used the rest of the sauce to make a vegetable and noodle stir fry, including pepper, mushroom, and home grown spring onions (see my youtube video on how to grow your own spring onions). This was a great tasting way to use up the left over fish, and the flavours went wonderfully together! I didn't feel confident putting the fish in the stir fry, as there were a few small bones in the fish that I felt would have been a bit more difficult to detect if served in that way.




I enjoyed both these dishes tremendously and I really want to eat fish more often. Do you have any favourite fish recipes to share? I'd love to read them!

Tuesday 1 September 2015

Recycled Patchwork Quilt

Excuse the messy bedroom!
After several long months, I've finally finished this beautiful patchwork throw. It's taken me about a year and a half, although I must admit there were several months where I hid it in a cupboard and tried to forget I'd ever started on this doomed endeavor.

I'm pleased with how pretty this quilt looks, it really brightens up the room, but the achievement I'm most proud of is that this project is made from 100% recycled material (if we discount the cotton thread used to sew things together ;) )

I decided to try this out when I had lots of old pairs of jeans, full of holes, sitting in my fabric box. The throw is made of alternating denim patches. It is 20x20 patches, which means that overall these are 400 squares! So 200 of these are denim. It took 4 pairs of jeans, a denim jacket and a denim skirt to make enough patches. I deliberately cut some patches from pockets, or over seams, so that the details remained, and you could tell a little bit about the former life of the fabric.


The darker area shows where there used to be a pocket
The seam from the leg of a jean adds a cute detail

Where two seams meet, an interesting bit of detail

This is probably my favourite denim patch!
 






The coloured patches are made from any scraps of fabric I could find. There are old curtains and cushion covers, table cloths and tea towels. There are cut offs from old cosplay costumes, and scraps left from homemade Christmas gifts. There's bits of at least 2 old shirts in there. I tried not to cut up anything that would be otherwise useful, and so a lot of the time it took to make this quilt was waiting for the right patches to turn up.








The backing for the quilt is an old flat sheet, bought second hand on eBay. The seller was selling a plain flat sheet and 3 floral pillowcases in a matching colour. The pillow cases didn't get put to waste; I used one to create the floral binding to edge the quilt. The two other pillow cases might be turned into craft projects, or might just adorn our bed...I've not quite decided yet!

This is more of a throw than a quilt, as I didn't use any batting. The throw is incredibly heavy already, as the denim is such a heavy fabric, and quilting through just the denim and the sheet was difficult enough, without adding an extra layer to battle through with my machine. I'm not sure I could actually lift and carry the thing if it had another layer! If you did want to make a smaller throw than this, an old blanket could replace the batting, but it really is quite warm and heavy without it!

I'm always needing denim projects, as I love to wear jeans, so I've always got a pair or two in need of recycling. This project dealt with that issue for quite a while! But I've just put a hole in another pair of jeans...what will I do with them now?!

Edit: I made a matching patchwork cushion, you can do the same by following along with my video here

Wednesday 26 August 2015

Cross Stitch Gaming Sprites

I was recently given a cross stitch magazine by a visitor. I hadn't cross stitched since I was little (I made an egg cozy with a chick on it in Brownies!), but I tried out a simple design with my free gift, and made these adorable sweeties.



My husband was fascinated with how simply and quickly the designs came together. "They look like pixels" declared his inner computer geek. "Can I have a go?"







He took a few hours over this Pokemon sprite, and we both thought it looked brilliant. I've seen Hamma Bead sprites before, but hadn't thought to interpret sprites into cross stitch. Being big fans of retro games, we both got stitching. Next, he made my favourite characters from Final Fantasy VI.


I've since made Chrono from Chrono Trigger and Mog from Final Fantasy 6. I think these look great! And they'll be a great way to customise a gift for a retro gamer. Sprites are small, and so the designs only take a couple of hours at most to complete, so they're a brilliant quick project. Does anyone else do this? I'd love to see any other cross stitched sprites!

Tuesday 18 August 2015

Cosplay Tutorial -Princess Garnet Crown



If you haven't already realised, I'm a little bit of a geek, and one of my geeky pass times is cosplay - dressing up as fictional characters and hanging out with other awesome people also dressed as fictional characters!

I've recently been clearing out my wardrobe of cosplay costumes that I don't think I'm going to wear any longer, and selling them on. This costume is from my favourite video game of all time, Final Fantasy IX, and the character is Garnet, a young princess who is forced to make a lot of difficult decisions for the good of her country. I'd wanted to cosplay Garnet since I'd discovered what cosplay was, and I received the custom made dress as an 18th birthday present.

I didn't make the dress, but I did make the accessories, and the crown/headpiece I am particularly proud of. So I thought I'd put together a short tutorial that explains what I did, so that others wanting to make this crown can give it a go. It's very low cost, in fact you could probably make this for under £10 if you got the materials at the right price.

Equipment:
You will need a thin silver headband (not too thin, wide enough to glue things onto).
Craft Foam Pieces (these can be bought from most craft shops, they're usually used by little children to make cards and pictures- you could cut craft foam sheets to shape, but you get much more uniform designs by buying these little pieces)
Silver Acrylic Paint
Varnish
Large Flat Green Bead or Jewel
Small Green and White beads
White Sewing Thread and a sharp needle
String


First sort through your foam pieces to get the shapes you need. You may have to cut some to get the desired size and shape.

The crown is made of 5 main parts.

The middle part is the setting for the green jewel. The parts to either side of that are "wing shaped". And then either side of those wing shapes is a large, intricate design, which is mirrored on either side of the crown.

I spent a while, probably up to half an hour, checking my reference pictures and arranging these larger intricate designs. You can see the shapes I eventually ended up with in the picture below, and the different colours of foam allows you to see exactly how I layered the pieces. When I was happy with the arrangement I glued the pieces together with hot glue, and mirrored it for the other design. I did the same for the other 3 pieces on the crown.



Next I hot glued the foam shapes onto the headband, being careful to position the pieces so that the crown was symmetrical.
Then, the crown was ready to paint.

I used silver acrylic paint because it's cheap and easy to clean up if you make a mess! It took several coats of paint to hide the bright colours of the foam, but it was worth it.

Adding the beads was a little more tricky. Following the reference pictures, I made 6 strings of 4 green and 2 white beads onto sewing thread, and then stitched these strings into the foam at the front of the headband. It's very easy to get a sharp needle through the foam. I then simply secured the threads with a few sturdy knots, and added a little silver paint to hide the threads. I hot glued the green bead in place-it's best to do this after all painting is finished and dried!

I added a thick coat of varnish to the whole headband. This not any acts as a second "glue" to keep everything in place and a protective waterproof layer for the paint, it also serves to "blend" the lines between the foam slightly, giving the crown a more carved metal look than a painted craft foam look!

Finally, I needed to add the chains that are at the back of the crown. I looked into adding metal chains, but they were all rather heavy and caused the headband to bend, and I was worried about them damaging the foam. So instead, I took some ordinary string and painted it silver, and tied these onto the crown, just under the wing shaped foam pieces. I used two pieces of string, one slightly longer than the other, as Garnet has two chains on her head dress, one that sits just below the other.


I was very pleased with the crown, and it's stood the test of time, with only minor repair works being needed after wearing it to several conventions.

If you cosplay Garnet I'd love to see pictures!

Thursday 13 August 2015

Menu Planning

I've recently been watching The Box on BBC1. It's a cooking show where contestants are given a box of ingredients and challenged to cook a meal. On a recent episode one contestant was given a box marked "leftovers". In it was some cooked pasta, boiled potatoes, half a bell pepper, cooked salmon and the stalk from a floret of broccoli.

The contestant visibly groaned when he saw those ingredients. I felt a thrill of excitement. I can make a meal out of that! One of my greatest culinary achievements to date was learning from my housemate how to make leftover broccoli stalks tasty! No gourmet food in our house, but nothing ever goes in the bin.

I love cooking. I find it relaxing to prepare food, I love trying a new recipe or idea out in the kitchen. I love opening the fridge, seeing what we've got, and coming up with a bizarre concoction out of leftovers. My husband is a capable cook, but he is not the king of leftovers. He needs a recipe, and all the ingredients laid out in front of him. If he's not got something on the list he begins to panic.

Recently I've been all but banished from the kitchen. I get numbness in my limbs which means I can't tell if I get hurt, and my arms will spasm out of my control, causing me to drop or throw things (like pans of boiling water, or knives). My legs hurt if I stand for long periods of time. I manage to cook maybe one simple meal a week, and even then I probably shouldn't. So the burden of food preparation has fallen on my husband.

Suddenly, we found we never had the right food in the fridge. We were reaching for the takeaway menu more often than was reasonable (or affordable!). And we found ourselves arguing about food, about the cost, on a fairly regular basis.

So we sat down and planned a menu.

At the beginning of the week we write down 7 meals we want to eat. Then, based on that menu, we write a shopping list. We include one meal I can safely cook for a day when I'm feeling well, and one "easy" meal for a night we just can't be bothered, so something like a frozen pizza. If my husband hasn't cooked it before I will write out a simple recipe for him, or find him a simple recipe online.


We then ensure that we buy all the ingredients needed to make those meals, and not more (so there aren't any leftovers for me to fret about throwing away!). We don't designate a meal to a given night because my condition is so changeable. We never know when I'm going to have a good day.



We're three weeks into this new plan, and we've not yet had a meal out or a takeaway, which is a big step for us, and a huge saving financially!

It's been hard to let go of the control of the kitchen, but my husband is so much happier for it being arranged in a way he feels comfortable to cook. Not only has he started to feel comfortable with preparing our meals; this morning I was woken with pancakes for breakfast.

Wednesday 5 August 2015

Socialising and Handwriting


Earlier this year I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and have been off work long term since January. One of the big problems I’ve faced has been loneliness.

I’ve found a few things to alleviate this problem. One thing is to make it clear to all my friends and family that they are welcome to invite themselves around or to just pop in. I’ve been socialising with other people who are unwell, or who are off work for another reason; maybe they’re on maternity leave, or retired. You don’t just have to socialise in person either, which is great news if you can’t get out because of fatigue or pain. Texting, phoning and social media are all great ways to catch up with friends and brighten your day!

After my most recent relapse though, I discovered a way to socialise that I haven’t used in years. I’ve been struggling to grip with my right hand because of pain on the right hand side of my body, and as I’m right handed this caused all kinds of problems! I keep dropping things, I’m taking a long time to do normal jobs, and writing by hand was nearly impossible!


My physio insisted that I practice things that are difficult, to remind my nerves what they were supposed to feel. So I decided to write some letters by hand to cheer up some friends. I had six greetings cards knocking about, so I offered to write to the first 6 Facebook friends who wanted a card.

It was incredibly therapeutic to write letters. Physically speaking, it got easier as I went on, though I needed a break between each card, and it took me most of the day. Emotionally however, it was so lovely to put other people first, and think of ways to encourage or cheer up people I love!

This is definitely going to be an ongoing therapy for me, as more than 6 people wanted cards in the end. I’ll have to watch the cost of the stamps though!

If you’re feeling lonely today, why not try writing a letter? Write to someone who’s helped you, to someone who you’ve not spoken to in a while, or just ask who’d like a letter. After all, we all love getting nice surprises in the post.