Big Granddaughter (12) is writing (and drawing) several graphic novels - as you do - and when she was here last weekend she decided to make a small "Worms and Shakespeare" booklet. No idea what inspired her - well, Shakespeare, obviously. I give you some extracts.
I like the ruffs.
Littlest Granddaughter was taken by Daughter 2 to visit the other grandparents in Nottingham, where there's an impressive wintry display at the local garden centre. Son-in-Law 2 is still away at the Birmingham Rep for another six weeks. D2 is a noble person. 3 months of single-parenting.
And I ... have been busy with stuff like making four Christmas cakes, writing cards, organising my choir's Christmas concert... you know the sort of thing.
British traditional Christmas cakes are rich fruit, ie with lots and lots of sultanas, raisins, chopped peel, glace cherries, almonds, so the mixture is very heavy and stiff. For, I would estimate, 48 years, I struggled to make the cake tin lining stay in place while I filled the tin with this concrete-like, sticky mixture. Then a few years ago I had the idea to use clothes pegs. You can remove them when the tin is half-full because the weight of the cake holds the paper in place.
I was telling this to a group of friends the other day - mainly to find out if everyone in the world did this, and only I was stupid enough never to have thought of it (no, it turned out) - and one of my friends, a highly intelligent person, said, "Do the clothes pegs not melt in the oven?"
I'll put it down to temporary absent-mindedness.
Yes, I do that too. Small metal bulldog clips work as well. ( works if putting liquid mixture into a pastry shell etc )
ReplyDeleteLove the Shakespeare!
I'm lost in admiration over the graphic novel; she is so talented! That's a clever idea with the clothespins as we call them. Ours used to be wooden. I'm hoping that I wouldn't ask about them melting in the oven but I can be rather clueless sometimes. I had to look up sultanas. I thought it was just another word for raisin.
ReplyDeleteYour graphic novelist grand daughter is very creative to craft a story about Shakespearean worms! I've never made a Christmas cake - my Scottish grandmother and my mom used to make a Madeira fruitcake which is similar, but the batter is light, rather than dark.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the first giggle of the day!
ReplyDeleteWhat a clever girl she is! And such a great sense of humour! I have moved on from clothes pegs - I now use glass headed quilting pins - that way they don't have to be removed and they don't weight down the top of the paper and buckle. And, of course they can be cleaned and reused. I'm not making a cake this year. My Dearly Beloved loves a Christmas cake with a DOUBLE layer of Royal icing. The calorie count must be horrific, so I decided that if it wasn't there, it wouldn't do the damage! (That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!!) Happy Christmas to you and Mr L. What a wonderful family you have. I'd love to see more of that Worms and Shakespeare graphic novel, if she would share it with us. It's very clever.
ReplyDeleteOh, that wasn't the graphic novel, just a wee booklet. I haven't seen the graphic novel yet! These things are easier to start than to complete... Does the glass not melt?
Delete