A few months ago I went on a glass fusing and slumping course in London. I finally picked up the resulting glassware when I visited my parents on the way back from my Christmas holiday. I was very pleased indeed with the results – all the pieces had come out much better than I had […]
I had such fun last year glass blowing that I thought I’d try another glass-related craft. After quite a bit of searching online, I found a one day course on glass fusing and slumping, hosted by Rainbow Glass in Stoke Newington, North London. It sounded intriguing, so I signed myself up for the one-day course […]
It’s Bank Holiday Monday, and it’s been pouring with rain all day. The cloud is so low that I can’t even see the ridge of the Malvern Hills, less than half a mile away. There was no point in spending my holiday getting soaked outdoors, so I have instead spent the day constructing a wooden […]
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 […]
The absolute highlight of the trip for me (as I think for most people, unless they had a frankly unhealthy obsession with early Byzantine basilicas) was the museum at Vergina, displaying the contents of the Macedonian royal tombs. These had been the subject of a superb exhibition at the Ashmolean museum in Oxford in 2011. […]
I got home from work today to find a parcel waiting for me. It was the glasses I’d blown on Saturday, all very well wrapped up in bubble-wrap and packed in newspaper. They’d done a very good job of parcelling them up. And here they are! Proof that I’ve got years of training and apprenticeship […]
I mentioned a few months ago that I thought it might be interesting to have a go at making hand-made glasses. Glass blowing is something I’ve wanted to do, at the back of my mind, for several years now, but Chris wasn’t particularly interested so I didn’t take it any further. But for the last […]
I’ve never been particularly keen on potatoes. They are a staple part of my diet, but I much prefer them to taste of something other than potato – such as roast potatoes with goose fat, mashed potato with lots of cream and cheese, or chips with vinegar. I simply won’t eat plain boiled potatoes, not […]
For each of the past few Christmases, I have been given a Timberkit to construct. They are rather fun moving models, all made from wood, which you assemble yourself. Last year I made a model of Stephenson’s “Rocket” and the previous year was a drummer with a full drum-kit. All the parts are pre-cut and drilled, and […]
My holiday in Peru was hardly a gastronomic experience – the most positive adjective I could use to describe most of the food is “interesting”. But I did particularly enjoy one dessert – churros with chocolate. They were deep-fried sugared sticks of dough, like long thin doughnuts, and were the highlight of one otherwise unmemorable […]
