This baffled spellcheck. But it’s how a five year old spells and wots rong wiv vat? I reckon granddaughter Bay’s months ahead of schedule whatever spellcheck thinks and here’s the proof. If you want the translation - if indeed you need a translation - it’s at the end of this musing.
Bay’s also a pretty good cook. Her latest creation is cheese and marmite scones and mum Sophie has written the recipe out to save Bay and her readers a bit of time.
125g cheddar cheese
55g butter
225g self raising flour
1tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
120ml milk
3tsp marmite
Put flour, baking powder, cayenne, butter and three quarters of the cheese into a mixer/bowl. Blitz. Add the milk and blitz again...it’ll form a dough very quickly so as soon as it comes together stop blitzing. (The less you do with a scone dough, the lighter they will be.)
Put the dough into a floured surface and flatten a bit with your hands and spread the marmite across the top, and sprinkle your leftover cheese. Roll it up and then flatten enough to be able to cut out circles with a dough cutter. Again you want to avoid handling the dough too much, and the dough doesn’t need to be perfectly flat!
Put on baking sheet and into oven at 180 degrees for around 12 mins.
So much for their pleasures this week. Nephew Jasper - the oldest of quite a few of them (blimey, 50 a couple of months ago) - told me he’d got much amusement from a photo I emailed him of his father’s misspent youth, taken the day before I photographed a rather more illustrious group of musicians.
Keeping this in the family - no-one else seems to have had much pleasure this week - another brother, Simon (or Choppers to his siblings for no better reason than as a reflexion of his soccer skills, being likened to Chopper Harris of Chelsea fame) suggested the latest news on the vaccine front surely amounted to relief for all and pleasure unbounded. Of course, but amusement too when coupled with Trump taking credit not only for the vaccine but for the rise of the Dow Jones: “The stock market’s just broken 30,000,” he said, “never been broken, that number. That’s a sacred number, 30,000. Nobody thought they’d ever see it.” It’s risen because you’re going, chump, that’s all.
Rosie says the arrival of winter gives her a particular pleasure: she and the dogs in front of a blazing fire with tea and crumpets, buttered thinly with patum peperium (the crumpets not the dogs). While Gemma (more family I’m afraid) got her joy this week by baking a giant Jaffa cake for no better reason than a local pal had cooked her a giant burger followed by an even gianter KitKat a week or two before. Bash meanwhile continues to admire sunrises and churn out an endless supply of plywood wardrobes to as many locals as he can shake a stick at and solicit a sovereign from.
Oh, and what about me? I’ve been wandering around the forest and local countryside, taking the odd aimless picture or two, because that’s what we’ve all been driven to, thanks to this damn virus.
PS In case you’ve forgotten: There is a very bad dog he is a very fierce dog.