A slow start

Well, I was hoping to post something here everyday but of course I haven't. Also I'm feeling really rubbish at the moment, wintery cold and all that crap, so I suppose that doesn't help. It's really cold today and one of the nicest things I can think of on a day like this is fresh bread. I try to bake my own as much as possible and in the words of the most wonderful Peter Cundall 'It's dead easy'. So here is my mum's super easy and tasty bread recipe:


Makes 2 big loaves or 4 little ones with a kissing crust (as pictured above)

8 cups of wholemeal flour (or mix and match wholemeal with some white or spelt)
1 teaspoon of salt (adjust to your taste)
960ml warm water (ie. 120ml/cup)
1 tablespoon of instant dried yeast
1 tablespoon of olive oil

Measure out 960ml of warm water and sprinkle yeast on top, stir gently and leave until the yeast froths up. Add the oil.
Measure out the flour into a large bowl, make a well in the middle and stir in the yeast/water mix until well combined. At this point I usually have to split the dough into two bowls and possibly mix a bit with my hands until the dough is even in consistency. Add more water or flour until you have a soft but not too sticky dough.
Cover the bowls with a clean tea towel and leave somewhere warm (not hot) to rise until the dough has roughly doubled in size (about and hour and a half).
Tip the dough on to a floury bench top and knead until the dough is springy and even.
Place in oiled bread tins and leave for another 20 mins to rise a little more.
Bake for approx 30mins at around 225C.
If you bake two little loaves to a tin you can tip them out and break them apart to make sure they are cooked right through.

Ok, so this looks harder than it actually is, trust me it's easy and takes hardly any time, just do it when you're going to be home for half a day so you can do other things in the times when you have to wait.

Photo courtesy of my partner.

Pets

I have recently moved house, with the aim of having more room to move, grow things and possibly (landlord permitting) have a pet. To my delight a few days after we moved in it became apparent that we had three built in pets, free with the house. Every morning I'm woken by the dulcet tones of a family of magpies singing from our roof. They are extraordinarily tame and like to eat cheese and peer at me through the bathroom window while I'm brushing my teeth. My partner took a little video of them the other week...

Magpies from leeeham on Vimeo.

They are the best pets, zero responsibility and endlessly amusing, (note their funny little runs)...well they are to me anyway.

My friend is a genius.

Image from Tom O'hern via Bett Gallery. More over here.

Past exploits

I've always made things, here are some things I made a while ago, weeks, months, years, who knows...

This thing...

I don't know how to write a first post on blog that doesn't sound hackneyed or boring, but I suppose I had best just get it out of the way. Some aims: I hope this will become a place where I can post things to do with my creative life, things I like and things I don't, though I will try to keep the don't likes to a minimum. I also hope I will be able to connect with like minded people, share some of the ace things others are doing and discover some new things along the way.

For starters a basic list of things I really like: making, reading, doing, listening, talking, learning, watching, organising and a whole load more ing things, essentially I'm not very good at sitting still and always have several projects on the go at once.

I also love birds, they provide me with endless hours of amusement and company everywhere I go.