ENGLISH MUM

   I’m still struggling with this photography lark, y’know.  It’s not easy trying to take classy pictures when you’re up to your elbows in egg whites.  I’m going to wreck my camera at this rate.  Still, here we go with another step by step: this time a classic lemon meringue pie. Lemon curd press the pastry into the...

So this week, Mr Lovely (D next door’s brother in law – it’s all so incestuous round these parts) turned 40.  Mrs L has been, somewhat reluctantly it has to be said, planning a big party and we had a little brainstorming evening to sort out the finer details.  Seeing as Mr L is a fireman, it made sense for someone to bake a fire engine cake.  Mrs Lovely didn’t volunteer.  Neither...

So Friday night we went to see the new Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.  It was really good.  I’m loving these new Bonds – not just because of the eye candy that is Daniel Craig, but also the sheer beauty of the whole things: I love all the amazing locations… the flash cars… the beautiful girls.  Ah, I’m a bit of a Bond fan, really. Anyhoo – just before we left I made these...

  So it’s half term.  And Middle Lovely came for a sleepover with #2.  He’s a happy little chap; talks ten to the dozen like #1 and he loves to cook.  So last night I got talked into having chocolate pancakes for tea, and this morning we all made a cake.  He could never live with us full time as our arteries would probably explode.  Here goes with the pancakes, then: For the basic breakfast...

So we ended up having an incredibly late night on Friday round C and K’s (the ones with the boat – keep up), drinking vast amounts of champagne and Chablis and tucking into a takeaway Chinese.  I was completely toasted and woke up the next day at midday with a hammerdrill playing havoc with the inside of my head (I know, I know – self to blame).  Happily, I saw both C and K down the shop...

So I’ve had ups and downs with my first year of vegetable patch ownership.  For example, the sweet peas went completely mental but didn’t give me a single bloody flower, the pumpkins, coriander and basil all died (too cold? we didn’t really have any sunshine) and the cucumber covered the whole plot in huge leaves and spidery tentrils, but no cucumbers (well how was I to know it was a...

So pastry, then.  Well it’s a bit of a sod, frankly and I try not to bother if at all possible.  I always get it all stuck to the rolling pin (not being the dantiest of bakers) but hey, my family don’t mind my rustic baking.  I was telling me Ma, then, about Bill Granger’s fantastically easy pastry made with melted butter.  He pinched it off Patricia Wells so I, in turn, pinched it off...

  So.  It’s happened then.  I have to say it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I opened #1′s door that particular morning – half expecting to see some embryonic teenager emerging from a particularly stinky chrysalis, complete with already formed armpit hair and foot odour.  Happily, a rumpled but still cheery greeting from under the duvet confirmed that the small, perky and...

  So I don’t know how, but both my children have their birthdays within two weeks of each other.  Maybe it was the bad English summers that sent us indoors in search of better things to do?  Whatever.  First up on the birthday honours is #2 who finally hits double digits (‘Finally, I’ve got double Ds!’  He told me innocently in a somewhat Jordanesque manner).  And in true English Towers...

Okay, so all that crap I said about our neighbours being lovely?  Scrap that.  D wanders in earlier, on the hunt for a missing child, oh and a spare Hubby to hit the pub with.  ‘So what’s for dinner?’, he says.  I open the oven, where a rather beautiful toad in the hole is puffing up nicely, and wait smugly for the compliment.  It doesn’t come.  ‘Ew’, says D, ‘you’re...