Hello Pip-Life

:: The Weekend Diaries

August 3, 2014

 

The Weekend according to moi…

Friday:
Tonight we are having Headmistress Chicken. I KNOW! Cam thought it sounded like screwed-up-dried-up chicken, but I thought it sounded like the sort of thing the headmistress would eat in her study on a little dining table, surrounded by velvety drapes and sparkling silver trophies and paintings of houses in the countryside and perfectly sharpened pencils.

Obviously my school experiences were a bit nicer than Cam’s, but my judgment was spot on because Headmistress Chicken is actually delicious.

I found the recipe in the book I told you about the other day ‘The Good Granny Cookbook’ by Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall and as I stood in the bookshop I sort of serendipitously flicked to that page and was sold. So many cookbooks have the same sort of stuff in them. A bit of quirk goes a long way for me, so when I saw this recipe I knew I had to take it home. It offered the promise of further quirk, if you know what I mean. I love that.

I think going ‘home’ to Tasmania and hanging out with my friends reminded me again of all the other things I love. You know how you get really busy and bogged down in projects and work and you sometimes forget about the things that make you YOU? Yes? Well that was me. Going home gave me a lovely reset and a couple of decent night’s sleep and it pushed me towards the bookshop the other day in search of quirk and deliciousness and me. Phew.

So I sit here now with the lovely smell of non-screwed-up-dried-up chicken. With the smell, in fact, of delicious, fragrant, mouthwatering chicken and can not wait until it’s ready. We are having it with creamy mashed potato and peas. Gosh. Sometimes I wish I were one of those people that could only eat celery and cress and lettuce and things. The fact remains that I really love delicious things and I think it’s worth being a little bit plumper than I might like, just for the sake of it.

But I’ve gone off on a tangent again, as I do. Sorry.

Anyway, I am really glad I went back to Tassie to see my family, even though I miss my other family. And I am really glad I got to stop for a while and just hang out with nice people and eat soup (and even drink a couple of glasses of wine… which is a bit unheard of, of late for me!) And snack on delicious bread straight off Michelle’s stovetop and talk about horses with Elsa and chat to my Nan about broken biscuits and find out more about my Mum.

Sometimes I am SUCH an idealist that I forget to just give myself a little bit of a break. So I did that. And I liked it. Remind me to do that again sometimes, won’t you? If you see me wigging out?!

There are eight kids upstairs playing music as we speak. They started off with some Violent Femmes and have moved onto some original 80s punk inspired stuff. It is so loud. I like it so much. Kids doing anything creative = a huge yes from me. There are a lot of shouty vocals from my kid, because apparently he has the ‘screaming microphone’. I haven’t heard of that before, but it’s very Bauhaus, apparently. Later they will eat pizza. (One vegetarian and gluten free please Mum?) Today’s punks have dietary requirements, ya know?

Hope your Friday was ace too!

Note: The Headmistress Chicken was really delicious! Just as I thought! Velvet drapes and gleaming silver, peeps!

 

Saturday:
We zipped up to Daylesford today. I am a bit wrecked, truth be told. I don’t know. Sometimes I think I don’t know the difference between being tired and relaxed. Do you ever feel like that?!

We left quite early, grabbing coffees at Alimentari on the way and drove up into a beautiful, clear, cold day. There was still snow and ice about from the freezing Friday weather. Cam insisted we stop and look at the ice on the puddles, in fact. It was indeed icy and reminded me of my childhood when you’d use a gloved hand to throw a stone into glassy puddles. I had forgotten all about that. The sheep/cows/alpacas looked quite perturbed. Do they really stay warm when it’s like that? Aren’t they shivering under their woolly/fuzzy bits?

We went to the Farmer’s Market and the book fair and The Mill Market. We had a sausage roll and some hot chips and then an early lunch and drove back home again via the potato stand and the tip shop. Ari was feeling a bit peaky too so we were home by around 3 and got a whole other half a day in, practically!

I got so many treasures along the way, so I was really glad I went. Old Penguin cookbooks by Jane Grigson and Claudia Roden. A book about dogs. Some old slide containers. A toast rack that I’m going to use to keep my letters stuffed into (instead of letting them mount up in envelope-y piles!) A Patricia Highsmith biography. A Walkman (!! I KNOW!!) A book called Summer At Tiffany (which I’ve started and I am really liking!) The Elephant And The Bad Baby (an old favourite!) A peacock stamp. An old edition of Tarka The Otter (which I have never read.) Plus heaps of veggies and a nice loaf of bread. And some National Geographics. Phew.

Is there anything better than hot chips?! Or a sausage roll with sauce?! Sometimes I think not. I also like a potato pie and sauce. And sometimes potato cakes…

Sunday:
I would love to tell you all the amazing things I did today, but I actually stayed home and worked. In between the work I made a lentil and vegetable soup and a lunchy salad and a really good carrot cake. Read an article about the cute Foxs Lane family. I also went for a run, first thing. I drank 235 cups of tea. And I crossly told two people to stop asking me for money. I made pompoms and watched The Time Of Our Lives (which I am trying to catch up on, because I love it!) I particularly like Justine Clarke’s wardrobe. She was wearing Obus pants in the ep I just saw! I love those pants! I wish I had bought them when I had the chance! DANG!

We were meant to be going to see Steve Wide talk to Jarvis Cocker on Skype for MIFF, but things got too busy here so instead I’m in front of the heater, finishing off Blog With Pip lessons and my newsletter. Actually it’s pretty nice. Not as nice as STEVE WIDE, but you know, it’ll totally run a close second.

I’m planning an exciting new thing, so I’m a bit thrilled about that… It’s a bit of an extension of Blog With Pip as all of a sudden there are more and more blogging courses springing up. I need to do something a bit fancier, I reckon. Sort of Blog With Pip with a twist! For the bloggy types.

If you are not a bloggy type, maybe you’d like to look at MY NEW BOOK? Well you can’t. JOKES. I got the very first pages through last week and I will show you a few tiny bits of those THIS week. In case you are into my books.

If you are not into my books, that is okay too. I don’t mind. Honestly. I can’t be everyone’s cup of tea, now can I?

Thanks for reading and for being a pal! I know this is long! What am I thinking?!

Love to you.

x Pip

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