Lenten Fasting

I've not eaten a bar of chocolate yet this year! Though I have grown rather fond of Crazy Sour Skittles.

I'm now hoping to double my efforts by giving up all chocolate for Lent. And all sweets, cake, desserts and puddings. During the week, at any rate - I need my lemon sherbets in the car for long weekend journeys.

Just to make sure that I knew what I was going to be missing, Katie made pancakes for us tonight. Filled with molten chocolate and topped with lemon and sugar. Decadence!

I've come up with a secret weapon though. My very own trail mix. I first came across trail mix in New Zealand and was disappointed to discover that the shop-bought version tends to be full of bananas and peanuts, or worse, coconut - three of the most evil foods known to me. I have therefore created my very own trail mix containing the following dried fruits:

1. Raisins
2. Sultanas
3. Papaya
4. Canteloupe melon
5. Cranberries.
6. Blackcurrants.
   

And just to add a bit of a tang, I've put some crystallised ginger in there too. Mmm.

I'm also giving up shopping.

But that's alright because I have a lovely pair of new khaki Converse Re-Issue trainers to cheer me up for the next forty days and forty nights.

Any lapses and defaults will be reported here - watch this space!

Home Alone

Skene has gone to the Bahamas without me. I have to admit to letting him go but I might as well get as much sympathy from it as possible.

No sooner had Skene packed his bags than Jennifer turned up, ready for a girls' weekend.

But now she has departed too, leaving me with an empty house.

So I've tidied up, safe in the knowledge that it will stay tidy for the next eight days. I've stocked the fridge with parsnips, kumara and butternut squash - all of which would be met with dismay were they to be served up to Skene. And I've rearranged the LoveFilm list so that I have nothing but obscure and slow films to view this week. The top 3? Far From Heaven, Atanarjuat the Fast Runner and My Beautiful Launderette.

Let's just hope that I don't grow to like my peace and quiet too much!

The History of The Hackings

A new website from UCL, allows you to uncover fascinating details about family names. I haven't quite worked out the academic significance of it yet but here are some interesting facts about the Hackings to keep you busy whilst I ponder on it...

• The name comes from a settlement - denoted by the suffix "ing".
• In 1881, the only Hackings in Great Britain were to be found in Lancashire.
  
• By 1998, we'd spread south and taken up residences in Wales, Devon, Cornwall, East Anglia, London and other parts of the South East.
  
• We've always been more common in Blackburn than anywhere else but we can also be found in New Zealand (mostly in the Bay of Plenty), the United States (particularly Utah) and Canada. There are no Australian Hackings and no traces of us in Africa or Asia.
  
• In 1881, there were 1409 Hackings but as we ventured further afield, we declined until there were just less than a thousand left in 1998.
  
• That makes us 17 in a million! No wonder no-one can spell it!
  
• The majority of us class ourselves as English though there are handful of Hackings claiming to be Scottish, Welsh, Nordic, Jewish, Muslim, Balkan or Hispanic.
  
• Hackings tend to be Golden Empty Nesters ie. older and provincial.

It seems that my suspicions that we are a dying breed are confirmed. Unless Katie and I pass on our surname to our offspring, there'll be no more Hackings in our family and it looks like this is a trend that's repeated across the country. We'll have to enjoy it whilst it lasts!

Skene's Birthday Cake

Despairing of me ever leaving my desk, Skene decided to bake a cake this afternoon.

In just a few hours, a perfect specimen emerged: rum and chocolate cake. Mmm! I had to hold him back whilst it cooled a little but we tasted it eventually and it's as good as it looks. He can definitely give up the day job. And I'm now giving some serious thought to commissioning him to make a cake for my birthday next week...

Kiwi Smoothie

I think I had my most unusual juice to date this morning: a kiwi smoothie from De Gustibus at Borough Market. The other ingredients included avocado, cucumber and rocket. I wasn' t wholly convinced but I might give it another try sometime...see if it grows on me...

Belated Christmas Celebrations

We headed up to Nottingham this weekend to celebrate Christmas with Allan and Katherine who had spent December in New Zealand.

We also took the opportunity to catch up with Skene's friends from Bilborough College on Friday night. We did a tour of local hostelries including The Bell Inn (one of the oldest pubs in the country), The Trip to Jerusalem (the oldest pub in the country) and the Pitcher and Piano (housed in a well-converted former Unitarian church). I was still finding sand in my hair from the caves at the Trip the next morning.

After a present-opening session on Saturday, Allan, Katherine, Skene and I went down to the nature reserve at Attenborough and walked around one of the flooded gravel pits. For some rather wintry photographs, click here.

The celebrations moved on to the various birthdays, past and future, with dinner en famille on Saturday evening at the excellent Restaurant Sat Bains. We all ate rather well. My meal was as follows:

• A carrot, ginger and apple tonic.
  
• A selection of warmed rolls including treacle rolls.
  
• Seared scallops with apple, chicory and fennel.
• Salt cod with piquillo peppers and parsley puree.
  
• Cornish turbot with salsify, frog's leg (closer to fish than meat, I decided) and red wine jus.
• A cheese board including some very mouldy goat's cheese and an unpasteurised Swiss vacherin amongst other select morsels.
  
• A pre-dessert amuse-bouche consisting of marshmallow, pureed grapefruit and shavings of pineapple ice.
  
• Chocolate toffee figs.
  
• House chocolates sans cafe.
  

The weekend ended with a smooth run back to London - just two and a half hours - what more could we want?!

The Road to Amaryllis

The road to amaryllis takes about eight weeks from germination to full bloom. In that time, the monster grew about two feet and produced four flowers on each of its two stems!

The downside was that it faded rather fast after its phenomenonal burst of energy. But all is not lost! It is apparently possible to encourage an amaryllis to flower again - no need to trouble Mr Marks and Mr Spencer a second time, just trim back the stalks and wait and see.

In the meantime, my orchids are beginning to emerge with the spring. Let's hope the garden performs this well this year!