Blue Umbrella

Minimalist Trifle

2010-07-14T22:29:53Z

I wiggled the rhubarb jelly and it seemed set enough, so I made some "crème patisserie" - egg custard thickened with flour. The idea was to make a trifle that would stand up by itself, so I could serve it in slices.

Unfortunately, it turns out that two sheets of gelatin doesn't set half a pint of fruit juice enough to stand up. The crème patisserie was fine, but the jelly just went FLOP as soon as I served it.

The end results tasted absolutely fantastic, even if they looked a little dubious. It had all the zing of rhubarb and custard, in a form suitable for the hot hot weather we are having during the rhubarb season. Who wants to put the oven on for crumble when it's baking hot?

Next time I try this recipe, I'll sieve the rhubarb better - the jelly was a little grainy. I'll also set it better and use slightly less flour in the crème patisserie. If the whole thing finally stands up on its own, then a bit of cream on top and it will be spot on.

Rhubarb jelly

2010-07-10T14:47:09Z

A few weeks ago someone gave me a big bunch of rhubarb. I stewed it and put some of it through a sieve to give some rhubarb juice, which has been in my freezer ever since.

I love jelly, but I don't like all the artificially flavoured ones from the supermarket. So I've decided to make some proper jelly from the rhubarb juice, and use it make a Minimalist Trifle.

This morning I bought gelatin and strawberries (two big punnets for £1!). I have pureed some of the strawberries, which hopefully will take some of the edge off the rhubarb. I heated some of the rhubarb/strawberry juice, dissolved a couple of gelatin sheets in it, mixed in the rest of the cold juice, and the results are setting in the fridge.

Will it set? I have no idea... the gelatin packet is pretty vague on how strong the stuff is. I'll find out later!

Frog Chorus

2009-05-25T12:12:26Z

Now the weather's a bit warmer the frogs are coming out of the pond to sun themselves on rocks - so far we have counted six big ones and one tiny one.

There's still a lot of tadpoles, so soon there will be frogs everywhere!

Tia the cat likes to sit by the pond frog-watching (so do we!). She hasn't shown any signs of wanting to play with them yet, luckily, although that may change once there are tiny frogs jumping around the garden.

Pergola

2009-05-25T11:34:57Z

Another trip to B&Q, some sawing, bashing drilling and nailing later, and we have a pergola. Now we can dust off the giant garden candelabra we found in a bush, hang it up and have a tealight-festooned "sitting room" outside.

Mini has plans to buy some clear plastic sheets and put a roof on it so we can sit and enjoy the garden even when it's raining.

Archway

2009-04-20T11:10:32Z

Mini's installed an arch over the steps, as part of an attempt to make the patio area feel a little more separate from the rest of the garden.

At some stage, I'd like to string some lanterns across from the sides of the arch to the sides of the garden, making a PARTY PATIO!

There's already a clematis and some sweet peas planted next to the arch in the hope of getting plenty of flowers on it later in the year.

In the background you can just see that the Japanese Maple is starting to come out in beautiful copper coloured leaves.

Dinner and bonfire

2009-04-12T21:52:36Z

Planting

2009-04-12T21:13:42Z

I've dug all the weeds out of the borders, and we now have roses under the window at the front and some new heathers at the back. Plus one border that was already planted but is now also de-weeded and mulched.

Bank holiday gardening

2009-04-12T16:31:21Z

The four day weekend has been an opportunity to get stuck into the gardening for the first time this year.

Mini's cut out nearly all the tree stumps along the edge of the garage (previously known as "rubbish tip") and we've dug it over and seeded it with grass seed - what we didn't manage to seed last year, anyway.

We've now spent two lovely evenings sitting in the back garden using an old bin to burn the rubbish we dug out. Tonight our bonfire fun was accompanied by the croaking of the frog in the pond. Has to be one of the best ways to spend an evening!

Shoe rack

2008-11-25T10:41:53Z

Between the two of us we have a lot of shoes! There's a handy space behind the front door that was obviously made just for this purpose, so now Mini has installed four shelves there:

Plenty of space for shoes, hats, gloves, juggling bags as well as an Out Tray for post and sandwiches!

Cupboards and shelves

2008-11-17T12:06:31Z

Our bedroom has a large built-in wardrobe with a corner shelf next to the head of the bed. The shelf is very useful for putting glasses, alarm clock and so on, but the only place to put the rest of the normal stash of bedside paraphenalia is in a pile on the floor.

Mini has now cunningly amended the built-in wardrobe by adding a cupboard under the shelf. The cupboard faces front, and there is a little "letter box" open-fronted drawer facing the bed, in which to put the glasses and the alarm clock, freeing up the shelf for a plant.

Here's the front of the cupboard - you can see the door waiting to be fitted in the bottom left of the pic:

Here's the side with the letter box:

You can see the original (four-inch-thick) shelf above the letter box.

BT Openreach efficiency

2008-11-10T11:47:20Z

We were promised phone and broadband by midnight on such-a-date. When it still didn't work at 11pm we called the provider and they said Oho, it's a line problem, we'll refer it to BT Openreach who handle all that kind of thing.

Bah Humbug, we thought, now who knows how long it will be before we have broadband working!

About 10am the next morning, BT called from a van parked outside to ask whether it would be a good time to come round. They popped in, discovered that the double glazing installers had cut the phone line where it came through the front door, installed a new master socket, and left us with working broadband in under 12 hours from the time we complained.

Thumbs up for good customer service.

Picket fence

2008-11-10T11:40:57Z

Moving years of accumulated garden rubbish from the side of the garage meant easy access up to the house through the mud, so it's now fenced off with a neat white picket fence:

Now at least people have to go right past our front window in order to sneak into the back garden.

Garage door

2008-10-21T09:32:04Z

As you can see in the pic below, or here

the garage door surround was getting old and rotten, but a trip to B&Q for some wood and paint soon fixed that:

Rubbish

2008-10-15T22:06:17Z

Seems the previous tenants of our house left it in a mess, as well as failing to pay the rent or the bills and leaving the house with a token meter and a bomb site in the back garden.

The landlord has made a herculean effort to tidy it all up again, and the back garden is now lovely. But there was still an enormous heap of garden rubbish and rotting furniture to the side of the garage, so in a fit of enthusiasm (seeing as we don't have the keys to the house yet), we got a skip delivered.

This is how much stuff came out, I don't understand how it all fit in there in the first place:

New House

2008-10-12T15:01:54Z

We have spent what seems like forever looking for a new place. It needs to be private, but close to town; in a reasonably nice area; and with somewhere to store a lot of juggling workshop kit. We looked at big nice places in the middle of nowhere. We looked at little terraced houses close to town, where the neighbours walk through your back garden to get to their front door, and you can still see the outhouses where the toilets used to be.

A couple of weeks ago we finally found a house in Walkley that seems spot on. It's a semi. It has a garage, a shed, gardens front and back, and a kitchen that anywhere else would be tiny, but for Sheffield is positively palatial.

Here's the house from the back garden:

From the front garden - as you can see, the house is on a hill, so the front garden goes past the garage, up some steps to the house:

And here's one of the back garden itself.

At the front there you can see the edge of the pond, at the back there is a shed and on the right just out of the picture is a small patio with a bench. It's just a shame the back door is at the side rather than onto the patio.