Skip to content

Duck Tagine

I’m not into purely decorative pottery; everything I make is designed to be functional. So there was no point putting my newly-fired tagine on a shelf and looking at it – I wanted to try it out. But I was very wary about using it for the first time. I have a friend who used a brand new tagine (bought from Lakeland), ignored the warnings about heat shock, and had it explode the first time it was used. So first I “seasoned” the base and lid by submerging them in a bucket of water for two hours, followed by putting the damp pots in a cold oven, turning it on to 150°C, leaving them to “bake” for two hours, then turning the oven off and leaving the pots in the oven overnight to cool down.

Carefully cooking a duck and pear`tagine - about to put the lid on

Accepted wisdom – as promulgated by Lakeland amongst others – is to use a heat diffuser when cooking with a terracotta tagine. I think that’s particularly important if you have a gas hob, to avoid hot-spots and sudden changes in temperature. But I have a ceramic hob, so decided to do without, just being very careful not to put the pot down on an already hot ring, but rather to heat it up gently from cold. I made a duck and pear tagine, using duck mini-fillets, onion, home-made chicken stock, and dried pears. There seems little point going to all that effort to make just one portion, so I cooked enough for two meals and had the rest for lunch the next day. The base was just big enough to hold that much, which I reckon was very well judged!

Making full use of my pottery!

I then thought it might be fun to ensure that all the serving dishes etc that I used for dinner were also ones that I’d made. There’s a dinner plate, side plates holding the asparagus and cheese-biscuits, a serving bowl for the couscous, a small bowl for my dessert, a cream-jug and matching saucer, and a small beaker for my glass of wine. I don’t feel the need to learn how to forge my own steel to make knives and forks, but it would be good to have a hand-made glass. Perhaps I should book myself on a glass blowing course next?……

08 06 2013 Gillian food
photograph Comments (1) Permalink

Genetic Sequencing

Hereditary breast cancer has been much in the news recently, what with Angelina Jolie revealing that she is a carrier of one of the dodgier BRCA mutations and having a double mastectomy. And bang on cue, the genetic consultant from Birmingham Women’s Hospital has been back in touch with our family to discuss next steps in investigating our family genetics, and its possible links to a cluster of cancers in all the women on my mother’s side of the family.

We’re all finding it absolutely fascinating, particularly since they have already ruled out the nastiest gene sequences. I find it particularly interesting that they’ve been able to track down and sequence the genes in samples from my 92-year old gran’s various tumours – she’s a tough old bird and has survived several bouts of cancer over the decades. In fact, I believe that the last one was so long ago that the hospital where she had the treatment has been knocked down since! But somewhere there must be a freezer full of samples, just awaiting advances in medical science to investigate them.

They’ve done enough testing so far to rule out the particularly pernicious mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. The official advice to me and my sister is to keep on with the mammogram screening programme, but that we shouldn’t be unduly worried. However, the team’s scientific curiosity has been piqued by some subtle changes in the genome in one of my gran’s tumours, which they think look particularly interesting and they want to investigate further. So now they are asking permission to do a full DNA sequence of her entire genome, to see what they can find. I think they’re hopeful of getting a scientific paper out of it, and reckon that a family of scientists would be sympathetic to that! Apparently our attitude is unusual – many of the women they see are very wary about allowing investigations and don’t want to allow the team to delve more deeply once the basics have been examined. But as a family we’ve got such a background in scientific research that we’re all for it – plus we find it very interesting.

So things will continue to progress very slowly, and we won’t expect to hear anything further back for several months. But it would be good if we as a family could help the team get a better understanding of the genetic underpinnings of familial cancer. After all, we’ve all suffered enough from cancer, either directly or supporting a relative through it, and I for one would get some satisfaction from helping to further research in the subject.

04 06 2013 Gillian cancer Comments Off on Genetic Sequencing Permalink

Murder In Play

It was my birthday recently, and my Gran very kindly sent me a cheque as a present. I have a strict rule that any such welcome windfalls have to be spent on something identifiable and “extra” rather than just going into the general housekeeping fund and being spent on food or bills. My original plan was to have another splurge in a bookshop, but I still have piles of unread books I want to get around to reading. So instead I decided to see what was on at the local theatre and spend the money treating myself to a trip out.

There was a choice of things to see. On Thursday evening, John Williams was giving a guitar recital, and there were just a handful of seats left. I was quite tempted, as I do enjoy his music, but decided against it. That was partly because I am so busy at work at the moment that I needed to catch up in the evening on some report writing before a deadline of Friday afternoon, and partly because John Williams was a particular favourite of Christopher’s. We went several times together to see him play, and I chose a piece by him to play at Christopher’s funeral. So I thought that attending the concert might bring back too many memories and be too upsetting.

Instead, I bought myself a ticket to the Saturday matinee of “Murder in Play” by Simon Brett. It was very light, a comedy murder mystery that made absolutely no demands on anybody – including the cast. It used the hoary old device of a “play within a play”, with a cast of reasonable actors playing the part of very bad actors rehearsing a murder mystery play. It turned out that everyone had a motive for murdering everyone else, and the leading lady got bumped off just before the interval. It was rather a case of “Look at me, I’m such a good actress that I can play a really hammy actress, but do it in such a way that you, the audience, know I’m deliberately putting it on”. I guessed the murderer and motive straightaway, as it was rather telegraphed. But although the plot was about as deep as a puddle, and the hammy acting got more than a bit tedious, it was quite funny and I certainly laughed out loud a good few times. In my considered opinion, it was a pile of crap, but quite a funny pile of crap. And it certainly fitted my requirement for something light, entertaining and undemanding to mark being another year older.

01 06 2013 icyjumbo Day out Comments Off on Murder In Play Permalink

Lights Out

I noticed yesterday evening that the light in the cloakroom in the extension wasn’t working – so my first thought was that the bulb had blown. That’s always particularly annoying in a bathroom, as the light fittings are totally enclosed in a globe-like shade, so I couldn’t easily even tell what sort of replacement bulb I needed. I dragged a chair into the bathroom to stand on while I unscrewed the shade. Hmmm – it was a bit dark in there, better turn on the lights in the hall so that I could see what I was doing. They didn’t work either – it clearly was a wider problem than just a blown bulb.

I checked the trip switches in the consumer unit in kitchen. All fine. The lights and oven etc were all working fine – it was just the extension that was affected. Then I remembered that the extension is not only on a different ring main to the rest of the house, for some obscure reason it also has its own separate consumer unit in the garage. So I checked that, with a torch because of course the lights were out. Odd – all of the trip switches were in the “on” position, but there was no power.

So then I investigated the main distribution board in the meter cupboard outside the back door. Which first meant finding the odd-shaped key to open it. I really don’t like fiddling around in there, particularly when there is driving rain, but needs must. I found a single RCD trip switch, labelled “garage”, which was off. Problem solved – flicking that back to “on” turned the power back on to the extension.

I really don’t know why the master switch tripped out in the meter cupboard, rather than just an RCD in the garage consumer unit protecting a single circuit. Nor have I found a blown bulb or fused appliance that might have caused the problem in the first place. For now I’ll just write it off as “one of those things” and be pleased that I managed to track down the problem and rectify it. If it keeps happening, I may have to call out an electrician to investigate the root cause,

31 05 2013 icyjumbo house Comments Off on Lights Out Permalink

Covered in freckles

I spent the morning back at Eastnor Pottery, throwing some lidded pots. Well, I say “some” – I was actually on a bit of a roll and threw ten pots and ten lids. They won’t all form matching pairs though – I was throwing “freehand” without weighing the lumps of clay or using calipers to get exact measurements. After a really busy few weeks at work, all I wanted to do was relax, and not put myself under any additional pressure to throw accurately. I’ll go back in a few months, after work has calmed down a bit, select just a couple of pots and lids that fortuitously fit together, and finish just those. All the rest can go on the reclaim pile and get recycled.

My completed tagine

It was a lovely sunny day, so I took my lunch out into the garden of the pottery to get some much-needed Vitamin D. I realised that my arms were absolutely covered with spots of terracotta clay from throwing – it looked like I had a massive attack of freckles! And it wasn’t just my arms – I’d got specks of clay all over my glasses too. I scraped them off with a tissue, and then realised the downside of having photochromic lenses. Instead of dark spots of clay obscuring my vision, I now had mostly darkened lenses with light spots where the photochromic polymers had been protected by the clay. Most peculiar! I came home about 2pm and jumped straight in the shower to try to wash off all the clay – throwing is definitely a very messy business!

While I was at the pottery, I also picked up the tagine that I finished last time I was there. To give you a feeling of the scale, it’s about 20cm high and is a good size to make a dinner for one. The idea is that, as the casserole cooks, steam rises up the conical lid, condenses, and drips back into the base. I’m looking forward to giving it a go, though I know I’ll have to be careful putting the pot directly on the hob.  Terracotta  tagines are notorious for being susceptible to heat-shock – you have to heat them up very slowly and gently otherwise they are liable to explode! It may be safer to use the base of my slow-cooker as the heat-source instead.

 

26 05 2013 Gillian Day out Comments (2) Permalink

Bluebells on the Hills

Bluebells above Jubilee Drive

The bluebells are late this year – they are usually out in full bloom for the last week in April, but the appalling long cold winter has put them behind, like just about everything else. However, they have been well worth waiting for. I went for a walk on the Malvern Hills this afternoon, along with about half of Malverm it felt like, to have a look at the bluebells on the Herefordshire side of the hills, above Jubilee Drive. They are absolutely spectacular – a purple haze stretching into the distance. They smelled heavenly too – like hyacinths but more subtle.

19 05 2013 Gillian Day out
photograph Comments Off on Bluebells on the Hills Permalink

The Long Earth

After buying the Pompeii catalogue on Monday, I still had a few pounds left on my book token, and since I’d made a special effort to get to the Worcester Waterstones to spend it, there was no way I was going to walk out of the shop without having spent the last penny! So I looked around for a light read to keep me entertained for a few evenings. I settled on The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. Pratchett I know well as an author – he writes fantasy novels which are always clever and frequently very funny. Baxter I’ve not come across before, but he’s apparently a well known “hard Sci-Fi” author. The combination of the two sounded interesting.

It was an interesting novel, about mankind abruptly learning how to get to a potentially infinite number of parallel Earths, each in its own universe. The twist in the story was that on only one of the parallel worlds (ours, or “Datum Earth”) had humans evolved. All the other worlds were completely empty of homo sapiens, though teeming with life of other kinds, not all of it friendly. Baxter clearly had fun trying to get across the quantum physics behind the idea of multiverses, and the economic realities of humanity suddenly having access to infinite natural resources. Meanwhile Pratchett enjoyed himself inventing the device which allows humanity to “Step” between worlds – a nearly empty box of electronics powered by a potato, circuit diagram included – and devising an irritating and arrogant computer which passed the Turing Test with ease, claimed to be a reincarnation of a Tibetan motorcycle repair man, and variously manifested himself/itself as an android, an airship and a fizzy-drink dispensing machine.

It was rather a bizarre book, reminiscent of a mixture of an earnest Larry Niven and Douglas Adams at his most whimsical. But it was a fun read and kept me quiet for a couple of evenings this week. I enjoyed it enough to keep my eye out for the sequel, which is apparently due to be published next month. I think I’ll wait for the paperback though – it wasn’t good enough to make me want to shell out for the hardback.

17 05 2013 icyjumbo book Comments (2) Permalink

A brief interlude in Worcester

It really comes to something when the highlight of my week is a trip to the dentist! I’ve been going to the same dental practice in Worcester for over thirty years, ever since I was at school in the city. It’s not as convenient as having a dentist based in Malvern, but I know and trust them, and it’s not as if I have to go there all that often. One of the nice things about working part-time is that I can, to a large extent, arrange my working hours to suit myself, provided that customer meetings and deadlines are fully accommodated. So, since I had to be in Worcester late Monday morning for my dentist appointment, I decided to go a bit earlier, do a bit of shopping before getting my teeth looked at, and then treat myself to lunch afterwards, before returning to Malvern, logging on and getting on with my report writing.

I particularly wanted to go to Waterstones. My gran gave me a Waterstones book token for Christmas, but there isn’t a branch in Malvern, and the last few times I was somewhere with a branch, I stupidly didn’t have my book token with me. So it’s been burning a hole in my pocket for several months now. I spent a very pleasant half hour looking at books and choosing what to spend it on. I always enjoy buying books, and it’s even better when I’m effectively spending someone else’s money! In the end I went for the big, glossy British Museum catalogue of the Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition which I went to a few months back. I had coveted the book at the time, but it was too heavy for me to carry home in my suitcase from London. It was still a bit of a drag hauling it around Worcester, especially as I walked from the city centre over the bridge to the dentist and back, but I’m very pleased with it. It’s not just a catalogue of the exhibits in the museum (with very good photos of them) but also a detailed and rather wide-ranging description of Roman life. I’m looking forward to reading it in depth.

After the dentist had given me the all-clear, I walked back into town and had an early lunch at Saffrons, a little bistro in one of the quieter streets in the city centre. I had the fixed-price lunch of sausage, mash, greens, and onion gravy followed by strawberry Eton mess. That was very pleasant, and set me up nicely for spending the afternoon working on my latest milestone.

15 05 2013 icyjumbo Day out Comments Off on A brief interlude in Worcester Permalink

Rich Hall at Malvern Theatres

Work is very intense at the moment, with two big projects both building towards major equipment trials. If I’m not careful, my life at the moment would consist of little more than work, work, more work, with overtime on top. So I think it’s important to deliberately build in some fun, non-work things to look forward to and keep me going.

I don’t often go out in the evenings, especially during the week, as I get too tired. But I will occasionally make an exception, particularly for one-off events at the theatre, say, where there is no option of a matinee showing. And last night was one of those occasions. The American comedian Rich Hall was at Malvern Theatres for one night only, as part of a tour round the UK. I’ve never been to a live stand-up comedy act before, but I’ve seen Rich Hall on panel games on the TV and liked his sense of humour. So I thought that would be an opportunity to try something a bit different.

I wasn’t disappointed! It was great fun. He did a lot of stuff about the difference in culture between the UK and US, and was particularly scathing about the US cheese company Kraft buying Cadburys (“A hostile take-over of a chocolate company? How evil can you get?”) I think the best bit of the show was when he quizzed people in the front row about their names and occupations, then wove those facts into improvised songs. That really was very clever. I was really pleased I was sitting half way back, out of the firing line though!

I was laughing out loud for the best part of two hours, which must have done me a lot of good.

10 05 2013 icyjumbo Day out Comments Off on Rich Hall at Malvern Theatres Permalink

A trip to the Vampires

I gave blood yesterday, in the rather insalubrious setting of Malvern Rugby Club. It’s something I’ve done for years, as I think it’s one’s civic duty to do so if one can. And seeing what a huge difference a blood transfusion made to Christopher’s quality of life when he was ill, has made me even more determined to “do my bit”.  But I really don’t enjoy it – I don’t like needles, get squeamish, and had a nasty experience about five years ago when I fainted clean away when I got up. I think that was due to having had a manic morning at work and not having enough to drink beforehand, but even so I’ve always been worried since then that I’ll have another “funny turn” – which would be rather more serious now that Chris isn’t around to look after me.

The new blood donor chair

But this time, it was a completely different experience. Instead of the old lie-flat padded benches, the hall was full of spanking-new and remarkably comfortable chairs. The arm-rest can be moved to the left or right side (I am left-handed, so insist on them butchering only my right arm). You sit upright in the chair to start with, while the nurse faffs about with the paperwork and cleaning your arm. Then the chair swivels backwards until you are nearly horizontal during the actual donation. They put a cushion under my legs, and instructed me to gently raise and lower my legs during the donation process – at one stage one of the nurses stood in the centre of the hall and conducted six of us like an orchestra or perhaps a ballet as we all waved our legs around in synchrony! The idea apparently is that the exercises stop the donor’s blood pressure from falling too low, and the nurses said that they have had far fewer incidences of people fainting since they introduced them. I have to report that it worked well for me – I didn’t feel light-headed at all.

Once the donation is over, the nurse gradually returns the chair to the upright position – but it’s done slowly in stages so that there is no sudden transition from lying down to sitting up. Again, that has been introduced to reduce the instances of people getting wobbly from sitting up too quickly.

I chatted to the staff about the chairs, which are very new – they’ve only had them for the last five weeks or so. Apparently, they’ve been designed collaboratively through brainstorms with the NHS Blood and Transplant staff, groups of donors, and a design firm. Workshops were held, where the nurses and donors each gave a wish-list of what they wanted to see in a chair.  The design firm then made a number of prototypes which were field-trialled.  Some of the requirements (such as an iPad holder!) didn’t make it into the final design, but the overall result in my opinion is a huge improvement over the old benches. The chairs are surprisingly comfy, wipe-clean, and it’s very easy for the nursing staff to move them from upright to horizontal to somewhere in between. The NHS has retained the Intellectual Property for the design of the chair, and several foreign countries have started to show an interest in having them – so they may even be a royalty income stream paid back to the NHS as a result – the nurse was particularly pleased about that!

All in all, the combination of the new chair and the leg exercises made the whole process of blood donation much easier and less worrying. I was very impressed.

04 05 2013 Gillian Day out Comments (2) Permalink