VeloCity

So, I think I'm finally just about happy enough with the first series of illustrations to risk releasing them into the wider world. I've grouped this lot together under the title VeloCity because, well, any excuse for a pun, my bike's French (a Peugeot) so tends to get referred to as Velo, and... um... I live in a city.

These were hand drawn with ink on lovely heavy paper and coloured a bit with watercolour pencils. (I love these, so much less mess!) I'm going to try and put some prints in my new, nearly launched Folksy shop later today but, gosh, doesn't it take an age to list things? 

Anyone else with a Folksy or Etsy shop out there? Pop a link in the comments!

                                    

Bicycling and breakfast.

As the eagle-eyed amongst you might have spotted, I've changed my banner and generally had a bit of a tidy up around the site. This is in vague anticipation of linking the blog to Etsy and Folksy shops where I might start trying to sell some prints of my illustrations/sketches/doodles (I'm never sure what they are...)


Obviously, entirely terrifying! It would also appear you can spend a very long time faffing with the admin for these things to put off the actual-listing-things-for-sale-part!


Here's a little montage (who doesn't like a montage!) of some of the things I've been working on recently which are hopefully going to end up in the shop. I'm still figuring out what sort of printing gets the best results but I think I'm getting there...


This clearly shows that I have recently been inspired by breakfast and bicycling. Scarily accurate summary of my life.

Healthy Cake, or Spring-y Perfection.

As mentioned, I baked up a cheesecake-storm for Grandad's birthday party. It ended up being a chocolate one, entirely because I had an open packet of dark chocolate digestives that I was in danger of eating in one go otherwise. It was yum, but there are no pictures as I ended up finishing it far too early in the morning and that's not a time in my day I like documented.


However! I also made some lovely elderflower and raspberry cupcakes which were possibly the springiest things in the world (the season, that is, they didn't bounce about the kitchen...) The recipe came from this book, which is one of my favourites as it's all about sneaking vegetables into cakes and leaving the fat out. It sounds odd, but I've not made anything from it yet that wasn't delicious.


(Little warning: The recipes are fantastic, and the pictures are lovely but it is very twee. Not for anyone who gets annoyed by cutesy.)


So, my beautiful cupcakes had courgette in. Everyone made the expected face (as I cried 'it's just like carrot cake!'), but tried them anyway and universally declared that you can't taste it or tell at all. 


Stealth Vegetable Win

I did also make this for supper on Saturday... home made pizza dough is a hundred times better for you than Domino's fried stuff, but I can't really pretend there was any other health involved! Um... there were some vegetables on it? Can you not see the mushrooms? 


Oh well, all things (including restraint) in moderation. And I had cycled about fifty miles that day!

Not socks...

It's my grandad's 80th birthday this weekend. I'd wish him a happy birthday here, but I'm pretty sure he's never switched on a 'puter in his life so I'll save it for Sunday.


We're having the obligatory family party, to which I'll be taking a lovely lemony baked cheesecake and, I think, a chocolate beetroot cake. Coming up with a present is always a battle though. When asked, all he ever requests is brown socks. 


Brown. Socks. 


I've actually bought them for him several times, but I just can't bring myself to commemorate another occasion with brown socks. Especially not an 80th grandfather birthday!


So I decided to get out my pens and create him something instead. 


Now, like many retired gentlemen, my grandfather has taken up a hobby to while away the hours, and likes to spend his time in the garage building models of ye olde fayre ground-y things (all those extra 'e's and 'y's are entirely necessary, apparently). This started with a set of gallopers (a merry-go-round, the one with the horses), but I think he now also has a swing boat, a living van (like a caravan but, um, different?) and possibly a traction engine. The horses on the gallopers have tails made from the hair of different members of the family.


Is that odd? Possibly...


Anyway, here's my arty present for my grandaddy inspired by galloping horses that may or may not share my hair.

Sticky Buns

This is the sort of recipe I usually shy away from. I think I'm afraid of yeast. And I'm not the most patient of people, so the thought of having to faff about waiting for something to rise never really appeals.


But then I realised that if I bake rising-things whilst I'm doing something else, it's all perfect. Make the dough, wander off to do something else, come back in half and hour and do the next bit!


So, I made these buns. They're a bit like the cinnamon-y ones you can get in all the best shopping centres, but my recipe said banana and chopped apricots so that's what I did.


Now, seriously, this recipe makes you feel like a proper domestic goddess. I pitied my unborn children for not yet existing to appreciate what a marvellous mother I would be, producing these from the oven.

I also made some with marmalade, and less sugar, for breakfast at the weekend. There are no pictures.


Here's the recipe:


100g strong white bread flour
100 malted granary bread flour (I just used more of the white stuff, there's only so many bags of flour a person can have in the cupboards)
1/2 teaspoon salt
7g sachet of easy-blend yeast
5 tbsp warm milk
1 egg, beaten
3-5 tbsp warm water
25g butter, melted
2 medium bananas, thinly sliced
100g dried apricots, chopped
50g light muscovado sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
zest of 1/2 an orange (didn't bother with this, no oranges about in my house)
2 tbsp honey, warmed


Mix the flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the centre.  Pop in the milk, egg and a little bit of water and mix it into a nice dough. Sprinkle some flour over your work surface and knead the dough for a while, feeling like Mrs Bun the Baker, until it's smooth. Put it in an oiled boil and cover with cling film 'til it's about doubled in size (I found it took about half an hour).


Butter a baking tin. Roll the dough out on your floured surface into a rectangle about 30x25cm and brush it with butter. Mix the fruit, sugar and cinnamon together and spread it over the dough. Roll it up into a sausage from the long side.


Slice it into about nine pieces and pop them into your tin so they're just touching. Leave it to rise for another half hour or so, covered in cling film.


Heat the oven to 200C. Brush half the honey over the buns and put them in the oven for 20-25 minutes until they look all golden-brown. Let them cool for a little while before brushing over the rest of the honey and eating.

The Return of the Soldier, Rebecca West

Yes, I am still reading Infinite Jest. But it's a beast. And too heavy to carry about with me. Someone gave me a copy of this the other day and it's short with a surprisingly big font, so I read it in the bath the other night.


As I said, it's very short and feels more like a little glimpse into the lives of the characters rather than a fully fleshed-out novel. It's written in the first person, too, so you're very aware that you only ever see things from one person's perspective and that it lacks much background or depth.


The novel focuses around the return of the soldier, Chris, from the battlefields of the First World War to the home he shares with his wife and spinster cousin (our narrator). Chris, however, has lost his memory of the past fifteen years and thinks he is a young man still enamoured with his first love. Whilst the characters are, at times, stereotypes, the book still manages to create a delicious sense of place and time, and to make us question the realities of why we chose to love who we do, how that endures, and whether the truth is really the most important thing to cling on to.


Short book: short review.

The King is Dead, The Decemberists

I'm not really a fan of live music. I know this is a shocking thing to admit, and every time I tell anyone it guarantees that they either shun me or immediately try to drag me to a gig with the best band ever which they know will change my mind. 


But I'm just not really a fan of live music. Sure, my ears are entertained, but what about the rest of me? What do I look at? It's fairly interesting watching someone singing into a microphone or playing an instrument for about, oh, ten minutes, then it gets a bit... monotonous. And you can only stare at the ceiling, walls, the person next to you for so long. In my ideal world, it would entirely acceptable to read a book whilst at a gig. Or to be having supper at the same time.


Anyway, despite this I do occasionally go to see people singing and playing in front of me. And one of these exceptions are The Decemberists. To be fair, I would prefer a twenty minute music-intense version of their gigs rather than the three hour extravaganza (friend B always makes us watch the support, too) but there are enough of them on stage playing interesting instruments to give me things to look at, they have a bit of audience participation and I really like the music.


But secretly, most of all, I like the posters. Here's this year's, on my wall next to last year's.

It's a big blue monster with pink nail varnish on! I think...


Next year, though, I think I'll save money by getting someone else to buy me a poster and sitting in front of it with my headphones in. Whilst eating my supper.