sunday morning

Lots of pictures of cakes this morning. Not that I've eaten all of these cakes this morning - oh no, in fact, I haven't eaten any cake this morning at all. These are all Women's Institute Cakes, cakes made by the gorgeous ladies of our local Saturday morning country market. As anyone who's visited me in the last few years will tell you, I love our country market, and pretty much every Saturday morning can be found sitting happily among the cakes and gingham and jam, drinking tea or home made lemon cordial, reading the paper, nattering away and generally waking up slowly.

Our country market is in a scout hut, and I love it for the simplicity of it, for the amount of cakes, for the fact that people queue up outside at 9am to get the best cakes, because I can listen in to the conversations of the old people who always sit at the same table in the corner, every week, because my friends all know I can be found there every Saturday, so various people often pop in and out, and one cheery friend gets introduced to another cheery friend, and new friendships are born.

All the food is hand made, there's always plenty of local stuff there too, people bring produce from their gardens, and things they've knitted, bags they've made, jewelry and things for the garden. We're such a regular feature that they know our names now, and ask our friends where we are if we don't turn up. They call us the young people. Hmm. They ask when I'm going to start making cakes to sell (I don't have the heart to tell them my kitchen probably wouldn't pass the hygiene inspection. Ahem.)

Anyway, what's the point of all this rambling? Well, only that it's Sunday now, and so I can't go to the market for another week, even though I'd very much like to today, since I woke up rather grumpily this morning, and some tea and a nice bun would go down Very Nicely Indeed.

Oh well, Sundays have their advantages too I suppose, although they often feel rather too close to Monday morning for my liking. I'm off to do a very small bit of spring cleaning, things round here are starting to look a bit grubby now the sun's shining... And I want to plant some seeds today too, I'm imagining lots of gorgeous and tasty things in the garden this year, and haven't got round to planting anything at all yet. So, a day of doing, but Cheery Doing, pottering, if you like, a bit of knitting, and maybe even a proper Sunday dinner. Maybe.

Ricotta

My second attempt at making quark cheese the other day didn't work - it didn't set. Then again, the first time I tried it worked, and I didn't do anything much different this time, so maybe I just didn't leave it to set for long enough. I do like the idea of making cheese though, and found these instructions on the Simple, Green, Frugal co op blog for making ricotta. 

It was very easy. You just heat up the milk until nearly boiling, add lemon juice (or vinegar, or some other kind of acid), and stir. When it's cooled a bit, strain the whey off. That's it! I had some on top of pasta and veg, and it was very nice. 

The rest is in the fridge waiting for tomorrow's lunch. 

I've spent much of the rest of the day writing and reading, with a bit of sorting of my sewing area thrown in. I'll post a picture over the weekend. I've also done a quick whizz round of the whole house as my mum is coming to stay tomorrow. Cleaning and tidying is getting much easier the more we sort the house out! 

Working

I thought I'd write this post because of the comments I've received from several family members who have read this blog and said "shouldn't you be writing your PhD instead of making soap...?" So here's a post about PhD-ing.

This picture is of my desk this morning. It's in the attic, under the skylight. Someone had left the desk in the street with a note saying 'please take', so we did. Peter made the bookcase. The boxes on the floor have photos, cds, and an assortment of rubbish in. If you click on the photos, they get bigger and you can see better.

It wasn't feeling very restful with all the papers and stuff on the floor... so I spent half an hour putting things away, getting rid of paper, and changing the furniture around a bit. 

It had gone a bit dark with the rain outside by this point, so the photo is a bit dingy! The photo on the left is my young cousin - quite a lot younger in this picture! The two cards at the back are of pictures painted by my friend. The photo on the right is of a valley in Orkney I went to on holiday. And in the glass frame laid down on the yellow cloth is a collage of found treasures made by Peter. 

I've moved the bookcase to the sewing area on the other side of the room - that's a project for another day. I've got a bag full of papers to take to the office, and the cds and photos are under the yellow cloth. 

On the desk is my PhD management folder (until I think of a better name for it). I've been doing this PhD for years, and have so many papers, folders and files everywhere that it's difficult to keep track of things. I started this folder a few weeks ago, to keep the most recent things together, and so far it's working well. It's an old conference folder thing that was just hanging around in the house.

The chapter I'm working on at the minute gets put in a pink plastic folder, so it's easy to get out. On top is the sheet I use for planning the section I'm writing, so I can see everything I need to do on one sheet.

There's space for post it notes and small paper for messages and numbers. There's a couple of zips for pens and paperclips. In the space at the side, I keep some plastic wallets with copies of the past couple of chapters I've been working on, together with articles I'm collecting to read for those chapters, and notes when I've read them. I've also got a plastic wallet for notes from supervisions.

The red hardback display book was also hanging round the house, and has been put to good use. On the front is a work plan, with the date of my next supervision meeting, things I need to do before it, and a space to tick off when I've done them. Inside is a sheet to write issues and questions and things I need to find out later, so I don't get sidetracked while I'm trying to write. 

There's a list of books and articles on loan from the library and other people, and dates they're due back. I've got a sheet with contact details of people in the department, and one where I write the current version of each chapter, so I don't lose track of whether I'm on version 556 or 557... 

At the back is an overall work plan, showing when I plan to have each chapter finished and handed in. And there's an ongoing list of things to do that need chipping away at - listing references, filing articles, and scanning in photographs. I do 15 minutes of one of these each time I go into the office, and they're slowly getting finished.

So I AM working, and it's a lot easier now I've got everything in one place, and easy to find lists of what needs doing and when. It's also a lot less stressful (and again easier) when I give myself decent, proper breaks and do cheery things like making yogurt or soap or dinner, sewing, cleaning (not sure that's cheery yet, I'm getting there), or gardening.