I tried out a new recipe on Saturday, for Passionfruit Curd. Passionfruit seem to be in season at the moment, or at least they are plentiful and relatively cheap in Waitrose. I synthesised a recipe from several I found online, scaling the quantities down to something I though was manageable. I’ve never made a curd […]
I’m going to have another go at updating WordPress this weekend. If it works, I’ll post to say so. If it all goes horribly wrong, I suggest you give me a couple of weeks to lick my wounds, then do a search for “icyjumbo blog new location” as I may well have to try something […]
The toilet in what was Christopher’s bathroom has had a persistent leak for months. I’ve had a plumber take a look at it three times now, but it was apparently unfixable. To be fair, it was a very old toilet, and I’m not particularly surprised the innards had corroded solid. When we bought this cottage […]
My sister gave kindly me some theatre vouchers for my birthday. Well, actually that’s not strictly true. She looked into it, and Malvern Theatres apparently don’t accept standard theatre vouchers. So what in fact I received were some folded notes in a card that said “Imagine this is a Theatre Voucher. To be spent only […]
……And this time I swear they’re wearing hobnailed boots! After a weekend punctuated by extremely loud thumping from the loft, I phoned Martin, my very cheery pest controller, first thing this morning. He’s obviously got my number programmed into his phone, because he answered it with “Hello Gillian, I was just thinking that I’ve not […]
I’ve had Rob the painter here yet again, mostly working on painting the outside of the house this time. It really is a Forth Bridge style job – something seems to need doing every year, and it never seems to get finished. In fact, in the one week that I had him here, he was […]
For the last few weeks, I’ve been spending my evenings studying Roman history online via a MOOC, that is a Massive Online Open Course. It’s not something I’ve done before, but my brother-in-law thought I would be interested, so sent me a link to Futurelearn, which offers access to a range of free, university-level courses […]
My passport is due to expire in early January next year. So, since many of the counties I visit insist that passports should have several months validity on arrival, I really need to get it renewed this summer. I decided that I’d put it on my to-do list for when I got back from France. […]
There’s an interesting cycle of plays on at Malvern Theatres this week – Tonight at 8.30 by Noel Coward. It’s a set of nine, one-act plays, grouped into three sets of three, “Cocktails”, “Dinner” and “Dancing”, and organised so that there’s a separate set on each night. On Saturday, if you want, you can have […]
I am making the most of being in between projects at work, by taking a few days off this week to improve the house. Today, my cost-effective and friendly plumber is back, replacing the old, rusty radiator in the bathroom with a new heated towel rail. It’s a very nifty unit – it’s plumbed into […]
