After this rather frightening realisation I realised I'd better get a move on on my Christmas cakes! I try and do one every year using my grandmothers recipe, but this year I'm making 3 - one for us, one for the Boys family, and a little one for Aunt M. I've been meaning to get my arse into gear and start soaking the fruit for weeks now, but have successfully managed to procrastinate (why admonish my greatest skill?!) for long enough, so this morning I pulled out the jars of raisins, currants, peel and cherries and finally started weighing.
Now, three beautiful bowls of dried fruit and glacee cherries are languishing in French brandy until they're suitably alcohol infused to bake into a lovely traditional boozy Christmas cake. I love how the brandy mixed with the sugar from the fruit makes it all look so glossy and jewelled, especially in that autumn morning sun.
It took me shamefully longer than I would have liked to work out one third of the original recipes imperial measurements for the mini cake, but I managed to scrape together just enough fruit for the three cakes without needing to go to the supermarket to make up any shortfalls, although I do need to restock the cupboard with a few odds and ends now. I did however run out of whole almonds for the second of the larger cakes, but I figure that the nuts aren't going to soak up any booze so they can wait until to tomorrow when I shall motivate myself in the direction of the supermarket.
Secondly, I had my interview with the Citizens Advice Bureau on Tuesday morning, and got the call later on that day to say that I'd been accepted, so big yay that I'm doing something constructive with my time this year that'll hopefully help me to get a job! I start my induction on Monday, and should hopefully be advising by around February time.
I had a few hours to kill after my interview before I was meeting Danielle, so wandered around the John Lewis and Fenwicks yarn deptartments to oggle the yarn. Picked up a whole load of yarn in John Lewis thinking it would make quite a nice argyle-style vest, but relented and in the end put it all back. I also saw a rather cute idea in some variagated Wendy Happy 4 ply sock yarn. Each colourway is named after a different star sign, which quite an adorable idea! Unfortunately, after much googling today it seems that for some reason, all the stores I've found that stock the range only have 8 different colourways. I'm not sure whether that's because that's all that Wendy have made (which would seem rather odd) or whether the other 4 are just shockingly rare, but I would have liked to knit my own star sign socks, but it seems that my own Saggitarian sign is most definitely missing. I am quite drawn to the Pisces colour though, so maybe I'll cave in one day.
Lastly, my tickle in the throat on Tuesday has developed into a full blown cold, despite all my efforts to ward it off, so I'm off to snuggle up in bed and try and sleep it out. Just one last picture of my (slow) Thermal progress...
Now, three beautiful bowls of dried fruit and glacee cherries are languishing in French brandy until they're suitably alcohol infused to bake into a lovely traditional boozy Christmas cake. I love how the brandy mixed with the sugar from the fruit makes it all look so glossy and jewelled, especially in that autumn morning sun.
It took me shamefully longer than I would have liked to work out one third of the original recipes imperial measurements for the mini cake, but I managed to scrape together just enough fruit for the three cakes without needing to go to the supermarket to make up any shortfalls, although I do need to restock the cupboard with a few odds and ends now. I did however run out of whole almonds for the second of the larger cakes, but I figure that the nuts aren't going to soak up any booze so they can wait until to tomorrow when I shall motivate myself in the direction of the supermarket.
Secondly, I had my interview with the Citizens Advice Bureau on Tuesday morning, and got the call later on that day to say that I'd been accepted, so big yay that I'm doing something constructive with my time this year that'll hopefully help me to get a job! I start my induction on Monday, and should hopefully be advising by around February time.
I had a few hours to kill after my interview before I was meeting Danielle, so wandered around the John Lewis and Fenwicks yarn deptartments to oggle the yarn. Picked up a whole load of yarn in John Lewis thinking it would make quite a nice argyle-style vest, but relented and in the end put it all back. I also saw a rather cute idea in some variagated Wendy Happy 4 ply sock yarn. Each colourway is named after a different star sign, which quite an adorable idea! Unfortunately, after much googling today it seems that for some reason, all the stores I've found that stock the range only have 8 different colourways. I'm not sure whether that's because that's all that Wendy have made (which would seem rather odd) or whether the other 4 are just shockingly rare, but I would have liked to knit my own star sign socks, but it seems that my own Saggitarian sign is most definitely missing. I am quite drawn to the Pisces colour though, so maybe I'll cave in one day.
Lastly, my tickle in the throat on Tuesday has developed into a full blown cold, despite all my efforts to ward it off, so I'm off to snuggle up in bed and try and sleep it out. Just one last picture of my (slow) Thermal progress...
Hopefully it'll be finished by Christmas!
