A walk in the park...
And who do I see?
Continue readingAuthor Archives: Silver Arrows
Death, Fairness and Being Left Unmoved
Randomly yesterday, the thought just came into my head of the tragic death of Henry Surtees. I don't know why this suddenly popped into my head, but it has left me feeling so so sad. Even when I'd first read of it, years ago, it made me hurt inside, too. I didn't know him -- I think I'd only vaguely heard of John Surtees's son -- and the last time I watched a F2 race, I believe it was called F3000. And there are so many people dying every day, in much worse ways than this, so why does this one upset me so much and yet others leave me completely unmoved? And it's sad, because he was young, and his parents had to witness the death of their teenage son. And if that tyre had just been a centimetre or two off, or if Henry had just been driving a bit slower or faster, it would have missed him and he'd still be alive. And it's so sad seeing that smiling face and knowing it will never smile again. I don't know why this one particular death upsets me. It just makes me feel so sad, I have such a cloud of gloom hanging over me all the time, and how must it be for his family? Even after these years? And his biography on his homepage still speaks of him as being alive and it's sweet in a way, but heartbreaking, too.
As an aside: this is one of those situations where someone will say, Continue reading
Garden Update 11/08/14
More photos!
So this is the end of my lamb lettuce. It's not so obvious in the photo, but most of the leaves suddenly ended up covered in powdery mildew, and smelt all sickly sweet. Definitely not edible, so I chucked them into the border. I'll start a new crop next month.
And here are some photos of the busy bees. They always go straight for the borage.
Continue reading
Vegetable and Herb Growing
Here are some stuff that I'm growing. I don't really get much space in the garden, so a good deal of these are in pots.
Here is my lamb's lettuce, which is doing quite nicely now. Got off to a bit of a tricky start. It tastes really nice.
I planted some borage in the garden, and also some indoors for the budgies, but they didn't like. I tried a leaf and it tastes kinda cucumbery, but it was too furry and I didn't like, either.
This is one of the garden ones. The bees absolutely love it. I planted one in my sister's strawberry tub, and it is making it grow more than the other strawberry plant.
Continue reading More Vegan Yumminess (plus links for recipes)
I'd like to start on a positive note, rather than a whine:
Click the image below for the winning entry!
Technically it's not the winning entry, since I won the prize and the recipe didn't. It was just a prize draw, not a best recipe contest. Continue reading
My Morning Glory Saga
You remember the Morning Glory competition between myself and my mum?
Hers were incredibly slow to germinate, so I showed her how it's done. As an aside, I wonder why people say that MGs might need help in germinating? As in, they need to be rubbed with sandpaper, and then soaked for a few days. Really? I just put a seed in a pot of moist compost, sprinkle a bit of compost on the top, then cover with a freezer bag until it germinates, which will be around 3 days, maybe 4.
Anyway, I planted a Heavenly Blue, and my mum was trying to grow 2. Since she left hers out in the cold and they ended up shrivelled, I got a pack of Early Call and planted one of those, too. That's the one in the picture above. Anyway, the both of them were doing really well (attracting fruit flies into my room, too) and since they were growing all over my desk, and the weather had warmed up, I planted them out.
V bad idea. The slugs! Oh my gosh, the slugs were absolutely rabid this year. My Heavenly Blue didn't make it 🙁
Continue reading Custom Baby Memory/Record Book
Another baby, another book needed to save the records. The ready-made books are not really suited. It looks a bit silly when you have to cross out references to christening days and godparents and first Christmases and so on. So I thought, why not do it on the cheap and make it myself? And that way I can include only those things which will be relevant. So this is how I went from this...
... to this:
So it was simply a case of Continue reading
Chickpea Frittata and Vegan Vegetable Pie
Mmmm yummy! Yes, my diet is expanding more and more since becoming a plastic vegan. I can't imagine having wanted to eat these before:
Chickpea Frittata. I added sweetcorn and kale to the original recipe, which is by Cucina Libera, and I may try adding flax to it next time, too. It makes a lovely breakfast, such a change from my usual tea and toast, which leaves my stomach growling by the time I get to work.
This is my veggie pie recipe, a variation on vegetarian.about.com's recipe. I will post up my variation another time.
Close up.
That's all for now!
More Doll Clothing: Millie’s Prom Dress
I've been making more stuff for the dolls:
A prom dress for Millie (she's not really Millie, she's Florry, but never mind) and boots to match Molly's dress.
The problem with these dolls is there is so much variation in their body size (yes, yes, I know, don't start). I just mean that when it comes to making clothes, this prom dress fits quite snugly on Millie, but falls off Mimu because she is so scrawny.
Here are Molly's new boots. They only gave me one of those buttons in the pack, so she has to make do with one buttoned shoe, and one button-less.
I'm planning on making Mimu a more mini-me-like outfit (since she is actually a mini-me from when I had pink hair :'( Not sure where I will get the mini chains and zips for the combats from, though :S
Thoughts on Phytic Acid and Soya
There seems to be an awful lot of hate towards wholegrains from the online community. I believe most of this comes from fans of the Weston A Price Foundation (aka WAPF), an influential group who advocate a diet high in animal products (more of this later).
I hadn't heard of this group at the time when I first started reading these articles about how soya and wholegrains are really bad for you, will give you osteoporosis and bad teeth and kill you in any other number of ways. I was intrigued at first, as these sites, such as Mercola and Wellness Mama, seemed to be in accordance with what I believed about diet, i.e. natural, minimally processed, home-made, organic is best. So I was curious about this info.
One study that seemed to crop up a lot was this one (I am quoting from wellnessmama.com)
To prove this theory, the Drs. Mellanby did a study on children with existing cavities. The children were put into three groups:
- Group One: Regular diet plus oatmeal (which is high in phytic acid)
- Group Two: Regular diet plus vitamin D
- Group Three: Diet low in phytic acid plus vitamin D.
And then this graph:
Now the first thing I have a problem with is: Continue reading
Firefox 29 sucks
What the hell were Mozilla thinking? I've always preferred Firefox as my browser. I loved its user interface, its flexibility, its general user-friendliness.
I was originally a Mozilla girl (yes, there was a browser suite called Mozilla, before they split it up into Firefox and Thunderbird). And the move to Firefox was painless. In fact, it was pleasant, after we'd moved over to Windoze XP and the browser on that OS didn't crash every time I typed into a text box (up until then, I still had to use Mozilla).
But 29? WTH? It's like a different browser! It sucks! Even the workaround for replacing tabs in their original place (duh, Mozilla, they go at the bottom!) was removed and now needs an addon. The addon bar has been done away with, again, needing another addon to be installed. The Home button can't be moved back to between the forward button and the URL box. Why?? The back and forward buttons and the URL box are separate entities, or at least they used to be up to v28.
Even with the addons to try to restore the look and feel of my old Firefox 28, it still looks and feels lame.
Man, seriously, I thought removing the status bar back in version [insert version number here] was bad, but this is just ridiculous.
Continue readingFirst Attempt at Sewing Doll Clothes
So as you would not know, the inside pocket of my bag had come undone on one seam, leaving my keys to keep falling through and resulting in much fumbling around the inner lining of my bag to locate it.
So it was left to an old t-shirt to provide the new fabric of the bag's pocket and I'm pretty proud of it, considering the sewing machine used to break when I so much as looked at it.
So with what was left of the late T-shirt, I decided to make a new outfit for my dollies (I have three now). Since Molly was the tubbiest, I used her for the size, and here is the result:
The sewing machine didn't last long after I'd finished my bag pocket, so the entire of this dress was hand-stitched and made my eyes feel all goggly.
Unfortunately I didn't plan the dress all that well; that's why the seams are so weird, because I had to try to find a large enough piece of fabric to make the back.
The dress isn't quite finished as the shoulders aren't actually attached to anything. I've ordered some buttons from eBay to make shoulder straps to the back.
Vegan Doughnuts, Making Your Own Vinegar, and Quinoa Sprouts
After much dallying, I got round to making doughnuts using Ms Cupcake's recipe.
Dough my goodness! They came out so well! I think I am getting the hang of this cooking business.
This is them after a second rising. The mini ones turned into chocolate doughnuts.
Quinoa, Sweetcorn and Bean Burgers – Vegan Recipe
I'm utterly addicted to these burgers, which I have now named Quin-Bean Burgers. I think I have been a bit low on protein on account of only having 2 meals per day (including breakfast). So I came up with this recipe to boost my protein a bit, inspired by lunchboxbunch's bean burger recipe. As I said, sweetcorn makes everything better.
Recipe uses metric cups (1 cup = 250ml), but you can be flexible with ingredients and quantities.
You can use sprouted quinoa in place of cooked, but you'll get a crunchier texture. Don't like sweetcorn? Then just leave it out, or use your favourite vegetables, sauteed or boiled, instead. If you don't have flax, you can use more flour or breadcrumbs as a binder.
I like to make double the quantity, using one tin of white beans and one tin of a different kind of bean, then freeze for later.
Ingredients:
- 1 x 400g tin of your favourite beans
- 2 tbsp of ground flaxseed
- 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast (optional, gives more flavour)
- 1 slice of wholemeal bread
- 2 tbsp cider vinegar (optional)
- 3 tbsp coldpressed rapeseed oil, or any veg oil
- 1/8 cup plain wholemeal flour
- seasonings of your choice (optional)
- 1/4 cup cooked quinoa
- 1/2 cup frozen sweetcorn
Breadcrumb coating (optional)
- 2 slices of wholemeal bread (or equivalent in pre-prepared breadcrumbs)
- ~ 1/4 cup vegan milk OR water
- ~ 1/4 cup wholemeal flour
- seasoning (e.g. pepper, thyme, chilli, parsley)
- 1-2 tsp rapeseed oil
Why I No Longer Support the NSPCC
Bishop Hill has upset me this morning. I have had a standing order to the NSPCC for some years. I was unaware that it was taking £14 million of government money and angry to find that it is supporting the government's current attacks on home schooling... The government's campaign against home schooling has been disgusting - even implying that some home schoolers are doing it only to conceal their child abuse. The NSPCC's support for that campaign has nothing to do with its charitable purposes and - I suspect - everything to do with its status as a government front...
A charity that takes government money is not worthy of the name. Charity is all about voluntary contributions. Tax is, by definition, an involuntary contribution. Had the taxpayers wanted to give that £14 million to the NSPCC, they could have done so. They were not given the choice. Therefore nothing done with that money is truly "charity."
More insidiously fake charities, among which I am disappointed to suspect I must now number the NSPCC, are instruments of government policy and patronage. They are used to "astroturf" (create fake "grass roots" support for) government policies. They are used (through overpaid sinecure jobs) as a source of government party patronage. Many a Labour candidate in the next election wll boast of his or her work for charity, when in fact they were "parked" with that organisation by political influence.
-- Source:
http://lastditch.typepad.com/lastditch/2009/01/fake-charities-the-nspcc.html