Friday Links

Posted on April 8, 2016 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday! As ever I’m happy to get to the end of the work week and ready for the weekend. Only two more weeks and I’ll be on holiday…

This week’s links..

The resurrection isn’t an argument, it’s the Christian word for defiance. This…

My friend Jonny wrote some thoughts about the Panama Papers leak. 

I asked one of the men protesting outside Marie Stopes last week, how he was helping women with his protest. I pointed out that there are children without parents, children living in poverty, children who are the victims of abuse and neglect and asked him to help them and then come and talk to women having abortions about the possibility of not having them. He didn’t get it.

I understand people may think abortion is wrong but standing outside a clinic isn’t helping, it’s trying to shame people for their choices when you don’t understand their circumstances. All protesters do is make the choice harder. In this I speak from personal experience, so when I think about the situation in Northern Ireland, I’m angry, women in the UK should all have the same rights over their bodies and the same choices about whether they wish to continue with a pregnancy.

The problem for poor, white children is that a part of their story has been killed. Preach…

I really hate to link to the Daily Mail but that this appeared in the Daily Mail is something huge. Privatisation! Free Trade! Shares for all! The great con that ruined Britain

Becoming Amish

A Grand Sophy film. Fantasy casting begins now…

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Shallot Tart

Posted on April 7, 2016 by nicdempsey

Ages ago I used to make an onion tart. It was a pretty good tart, simple to make (because I don’t do faff) and tasty. Where I got the recipe, I have no idea but I did write it down and I used it a lot in my early 20’s. Somewhere along the line, I stopped making that tart, I didn’t forget about it, I just didn’t cook it, there were other things to cook and this didn’t get to the top of the ‘must cook’ list.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

This weekend, I found myself with some cream and shallots that needed using up (and unlike last time I made a tart no leftover smoked salmon or potatoes) and I remembered that tart and thought it would be perfect for my lunches this week. img_4007

I made some pastry (take 8oz flour, 4oz butter and pinch of salt, I blend in the processor and add water as needed until it comes together) and lined an 8 inch tart pan with it and baked it blind. The recipe specifies 12oz of shallots, which once I’ll skinned them is what I had. I cooked them in 2oz of butter until they were soft and left them to cool. I added 5fl oz of cream, 2oz of flour, three eggs and lots of salt and pepper and beat them together, then I added the cooked onions and poured the mixture into the pastry case. I baked all of that at 180C for about 20 to 25 minutes until the mixture was set and golden brown.

 

 

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What I’ve Read – March 2016

Posted on April 6, 2016 by nicdempsey

Leviathan Wakes – James S. A. Corey (library book)

I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed it. The world building is great and it’s not hard sci-fi so not too technical, I found myself feeling sorry for Miller and hoping that he’d have a better ending but it wasn’t to be. I’ve already ordered the next one from the library, I have a feeling that this could be a Game of Thrones problem there are 9 books planned and 5 I think published so I’ll be hanging around waiting the next book to find out what is going to happen.

Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch (library book)

This was recommended to me at Christmas by Fred. He was right this was right up my alley. Funny, does London well and I ordered the next one from the library as soon as I finished it!

A review of a later book in this series noted Aaronovitch has a “tendency to support the narrator’s male gaze” and that exactly sums up the thing that made me uncomfortable in places. Grant shares a bed with a female colleague in a non sexual way and has an erection which she is ‘kind enough not to mention’ (no just no, most women of that age that I know, particularly a bright policewoman would say something!) and there are other descriptions of women that make me uncomfortable and didn’t ring true to the age that Grant is supposed to be, it’s like Aaronovitch is writing about someone his age (late 40’s, early 50’s) with the attitudes towards women that go with it and applying them to a 20 something. I noticed and I wasn’t keen. That aside, I really liked the book and it made me laugh and I annoyed people by quoting bits of it to them…

The Quarry – Iain Banks (library book)

Iain Banks last book and I really wanted to like it. I didn’t much. I liked Kit well enough but I have no tolerance for the kind of fuckwittery practiced by the other characters. Behaviour that is acceptable in twentysomethings is not acceptable in fortysomethings. I just wanted them to grow the hell up and think about Kit. The whole bunch of them were charmless, selfish idiots with no redeeming features, I know that people aren’t perfect and that they fuck up but I need to see contrition, an understanding of how your actions impact on others and I just didn’t. I deliberately don’t have people that selfish and thoughtless in my life so it’s not nice to find them in my fiction..

Moon over Soho – Ben Aaronovitch (library book)

Still good, still have the same ‘male gaze’ issues but the story is moving along nicely, I have my doubts about Lesley and I just want that down now before I read the next ones. Which are on order at the library…

Whispers Underground – Ben Aaronvitch (library book)

I really liked this. We’re finding out more about the world. It has lots of London and its history in it which is always going to make me happy and I like the addition of Zach and that we still get to see more of the Rivers.

Big Sky Country – Linda Lael Miller (kindle TBR list)

Big Sky Mountain- Linda Lael Miller (kindle TBR list)

Big Sky River – Linda Lael Miller (kindle TBR list)

Big Sky Summer – Linda Lael Miller (kindle TBR list)

Big Sky Wedding – Linda Lael Miller (kindle TBR list)

Big Sky Secrets – Linda Lael Miller (kindle TBR list)

I bought these 6 on sale about 3 years ago (this is why I have yearly limit on book buying, I can’t be trusted!) and they have been on the TBR list ever since because just after I bought them I read a review that wasn’t complimentary. Anyway, I was struggling a bit with finding something I wanted to read and came across these and away I went. I’m going to lump them all in together because I pretty much read them one after another. So the first thing to know is that they are pretty traditional category romance, which means they absolutely have a formula, love starts with dislike (or passion as the author would have it) sex happens once and then not really again until feelings have been declared (while we’re on that the descriptions of sex are hilarious!) and feelings are declared quickly within about 2 weeks and always end with a wedding. But there’s other stuff going on here too, there’s a theme through the books about parenthood with step children and adopted children and half sibling involved and cherished, all of the woman have careers, a couple of them are richer than their eventual husbands. Ok, I did find that everything works out a little bit too easily and there is a lot of money swilling about this fictional small town in Montana but as I didn’t want to think too hard, I could handwave that so I’m giving it a pass and pointing out that in a week were I was struggling because I wasn’t sleeping and work was tough, these were just what the doctor ordered.

Broken Homes – Ben Aaronovitch (library book)

God bless the library reservations system, hello book 4 in the Rivers of London series. I was right, Lesley not to be trusted but at the same time you can absolutely understand why she did it, even if you don’t like it because Peter while trying not to be a completely insensitive ass does mind what happened to her face but not for him but for her because she minds. I like that Peter is bringing all these people to Nightingale and you can see how the relationships are developing through the conversations. There’s still a lot to unpick, I’m waiting for book five from the library and book six is out in June..

 

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Food and Budget Update: 26/03 to 01/04/2016

Posted on April 5, 2016 by nicdempsey

This was Easter weekend which budget wise feels a bit wonky.

SHOPPING 

I shopped on Good Friday because that seemed like it might be easier, I had a feeling that on Saturday everyone was going to remember that the shops were closed all day on Easter Sunday and it might get a bit mad. I didn’t have a proper list on my phone because honestly, I hadn’t really planned and anyway I felt like there was too much food in the house. So handwritten list

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I love Lidl and it’s veg offers, this week, new potatoes, shallots and carrots for 25p each which is ridiculously good. Ma and I share the cost of Christmas and Easter lunches so I don’t take them out of my food budget but we did bought a bottle of wine that was recommended in the Guardian, it was £6.49, so later in Sainsburys Ma paid for my eggs and mushrooms (£2.85). So excluding the wine but including the eggs and mushrooms, I spent £10.20 on Friday and later I bought spinach and butter and mini eggs but I can’t find the receipt for those but the total spent this week was £13.84

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COOKING AND EATING

Food this week was all about Easter. On Easter Sunday, I ate my Easter Egg for breakfast (thanks Christelle!). It wasn’t a massive egg but it was just the right size for my needs!IMG_3965-0I am my mother’s daughter so when I say lunch I mean sometime between 2 and 5pm! We started with anchovy and shallot flatbread, followed (about an hour and a half later) by roast lamb (this recipe which we never get bored with) with roast potatoes, leeks and spinach.IMG_3977-0Pudding was mini eggs and jelly bunniesIMG_3976There was also whiskeyIMG_3979On Monday, we had cross h’s for breakfast. (Cross h’s are just hot cross buns but apparently I couldn’t say that when I was little so they are cross h’s or cross h buns.), I ate roast dinner leftovers late Monday afternoon.

Tuesday was another leftover day for lunch and dinner. I was completely wiped out by the time change on Tuesday.

Wednesday also featured leftovers for lunch and dinner was pasta with leftover shallot/anchovy goo and added mushrooms. Thursday lunch was leftover pasta and dinner was the last of the leftover potatoes and vegetables. On Friday night I ate curry at Sarah’s birthday bash.

LESSONS LEARNED

I drank too much. Everyone knows how much I like a drink but I decided after the mother of all hangovers and in light of revised consumption advice, to make sure that I stuck to the guidelines. Over the Easter weekend, I drank more than that and it wasn’t good. However, that’s a lesson about moderation not budgeting. But it’s also a lesson about budgeting, I felt that there was a bit too much food in the house this week and over the next month I’m going to work a bit on underestimating what I need and seeing how I do.

 

 

 

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Life Happened: Three Day Week

Posted on April 4, 2016 by nicdempsey

The week after a long weekend is never the best but this week kicked me in the head. It’s the clocks going forward, I was fine on Sunday and Monday because I woke up when the sun rose. On Tuesday though I had to get up in the dark, it wasn’t very dark but it was dark enough that I spent most of week feeling jet-lagged. It was pretty pathetic.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday passed pretty much without comment. There was work, there was home, there was wanting to cry like a baby because it was 6am and I had to get out of bed. My mantra was ‘it’s three days, just three days’.

On Thursday night I went home happy in the knowledge that I would not have to get up at dark o’clock on Friday morning. On Friday, I got up and did some washing, I took books back to the library and found myself buying 5 flat sheets, 150 nightlights and a barbeque lighter for Sarah, not her present but for her party! Friday night, was party time, although I needed to bail at 11-ish because I was so tired and needed to be up early on Saturday   
Saturday was birthday celebration number twoIMG_3997Ma and I headed to Watford for Laura’s birthday lunch. Lunch was great and I learnt all about how anacondas attack their prey. This was a practical demonstration with Oli as the anaconda and me as the prey. Oli and Joe are both lovely. Joe is cheerful, active baby who looks a lot like his Daddy but unlike Daddy is rarely grumpy, even when he’s tired! Oli is just a delight, he’s so much fun to be around and is sucking up knowledge like a sponge and his reading is brilliant (he read me one of his school books).

However, I was already tired and by the time I got home was just done. I fell asleep at 8pm and slept for 7 hours, the last time I slept that much was when I had the osteotomy!

Sunday was a lazy day, I did the shopping and that was about it.

An easy week!

 

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2016 Goal Recap – March

Posted on April 2, 2016 by nicdempsey

How are we a quarter of the way through the year already? Time seems to speed up as we get older, certainly I seem to have more grey hairs!

So March. I was pretty low key about March goals, stick to the big ones and set simple and easy goals for the Little Goals. I did pretty well, I feel good about them.

I’m not walking to or from work every day but I did walk into work from the station twice this month, it was harder than I expected. I’m keeping an eye on the money and on track with those goals, if anything though I think I might be feeling a bit cocky about this so I need to slow it down a bit and focus.IMG_3979Overall, there’s not much to talk about I’m grinding it out. One of the interesting things that has happened this year is that I’m consistently early for work. As soon as my reduced hours stopped in January, I’ve been hitting the office at 8am more or less every morning. It started because the earlier trains are emptier and I wanted to be able to grab a seat and then I guess it became a habit and it helped me at work. I have an hour to work on stuff and set myself up for the work day before everyone else comes in. I wouldn’t say that I liked it, we are still talking about being up too early for my liking but the benefits of it to the rest of my day are clear and it’s getting much easier now the mornings are lighter.IMG_3913Thinking about that got me thinking about how 2016 goals are as helping me focus overall, because I don’t think that early mornings would have been easy to make a habit if other goals weren’t also in play. Keeping an eye on money means that I food prep better which makes it easier to get out of the house in morning because I grab breakfast and lunch and go. The same for having a work uniform, it’s just one less decision to make each day.

 

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Friday Links

Posted on April 1, 2016 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday! and Happy Birthday to two of my favourite people, Laura and Sarah. I’ll see Sarah today to celebrate her big birthday and Laura tomorrow for family lunch.

Here are this week’s links…

Religion has no place in politics.

This is why faith has no place in politics, and a prime minister has no place to tell us whether our country is or isn’t Christian. It is not because religion is civically irrelevant – it isn’t. Nor is it because politics has some superior rational grounding to religion – it often doesn’t. It is not even because atheists get a distinctly raw deal from such a political culture, even though we do. Rather, it is because, when politicians perceive us by creed or ethnicity, we become a different kind of entity for them. We are no longer their equals, who can think for ourselves but are open to persuasion, whose interests must be represented to the state. We are a congregation who, tickled the right way, will listen to our leader, since he is the state’s representative on Earth.

This on Aung San Suu Kyi and her comments about Mishal Husain in 2013, and about the general issue of the Rohingya in Myanmar was interesting. She was still totally out of order.

I like BrewDog but I can see why some people don’t.

A poorly thought through policy may have horrible impacts. Teachers may have to leave the UK because they don’t earn enough. It’s like they don’t sense test these things before they announce them..

Anorexia and the brain. Interesting and horrifying. There’s been some stuff about it being attention seeking I don’t think that it is but often anxious children seem to be attention seeking especially to older people (hello boomers) who are more robust or insensitive (delete the term you think suits best)

Anyone really believe that the government will really help the Port Talbot steelworks? We bailed out bankers, we should do the same for steel. They could have worked with the EU to do something about the Chinese imports but haven’t…I really don’t hold out much hope..

Why conservatives are talking about struggling white people the way they usually talk about black people. There’s been a lot of talk about Trump and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, I wonder if this is what it felt like for my grandparents, feeling that things were sliding somewhere wrong. It doesn’t feel like the end of the world but it doesn’t feel safe either.

From a link in the above piece. How Lincoln won the soldier vote. Who knew? I was fascinated by the Lincoln Memorial in DC, it probably provoked the opposite reaction in me than it was intended. I grew up in a country that loves victorious commemorations, so I know a statement when I see it but there’s something about the scale of this one that is obscene. Also, I don’t know enough about the American Civil War but then I’m not sure I know enough about the English Civil War…

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Anchovy and shallot flatbread

Posted on March 31, 2016 by nicdempsey

I like anchovies. There I’ve said it, I like them on pizza, I like them in tarts, I like the salty slap in the tastebuds they can give you. I come by it honestly, Ma is also fairly obsessed with anchovies and I try to include them in any celebration meal for Ma.

Which is how this flatbread came about because I have dough obsessed nephew, I often start family dinner with some kind of garlic bread (the one time in Oli’s lifetime I didn’t, he asked where the bread was!) because the dough recipe I use makes two, for Mother’s day I decided to get a bit creative and make a flatbread that was heavy on the anchovies and Ma liked it so I made it again this weekend for Easter.

 Like a lot of my cooking, this was done without a recipe and I wasn’t weighing and measuring as I went along so this is really more of a suggestion of how to cook something because the key here is to cook the shallots and anchovies with what feels like too much butter and really let them caramelise down and that takes some time. I’ve never successfully caramelised onions (or shallots) in less than 30 minutes, it’s not hands on time, it’s a gentle heat and a stir every five minutes or so but it does take time, you shouldn’t skip it.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASo I took a chunk of butter (about 25g), a can of anchovies (30g) in olive oil and a load of sliced shallots (about 15-20 shallots). I put it all in a pan and let them cook gently over a low-ish heat until they were soft and browned and just perfect.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThen I put them on some stretched out pizza dough, added some mozzarella and baked in an extremely hot oven for about 15 to 20 minutes.

I add shallot…I’m not sure what to call it…mush left over and I’m thinking it would be perfect run through some pasta as a quick and dirty dinner.

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Food and Budget Update: 19/03 to 25/03/2016

Posted on March 30, 2016 by nicdempsey

SHOPPING 

Here are the lists:

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Here are the receipts:

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And here’s what that bought:OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice that there are two bags of sweeties (jelly bunnies and mini eggs) in the shopping. I had told Ma I would bring water and snacks to the cinema that day so that’s what I bought

COOKING AND EATING 

Saturday night I had a burger and chips. I wanted a burger and I needed to use up the potatoes or throw them away (which is really becoming a theme!)IMG_3948Sunday was a less successful eating day, I did alright until at about 8:30pm I realised that I’d forgotten to cook dinner, I was reading and involved in my book.

I had a mango yoghurt and granola pot for breakfasts and on Monday, was in a meeting for lunch which was catered.

Tuesday through Thursday, I had leftover dahl and flatbread for lunch.

Dinners were:

Monday was dahl, flatbread and vegetables. (no picture sorry!)

An aubergine, mushroom and pasta thingIMG_3950Vegetables and an eggIMG_3953

I was out for dinner on Thursday night

Friday Night PizzaIMG_3964

 

 

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Life Happened: Easter

Posted on March 28, 2016 by nicdempsey

Most of last week was pretty normal, work, home, sleep and repeat but it was only a four day week because of Easter and on Thursday I met Christelle for dinner and proving that yet again, she is an all round nice person and friend, she bought me an Easter egg.IMG_3965On Friday and Saturday, I did weekend things and shopping. I did not sleep in.

Ma came for lunch on Sunday. IMG_3977IMG_3976IMG_3979

The clocks went forward an hour on Saturday and that didn’t really phase me until this morning when I had to get up in the dark! I cannot tell you how much that sucks, I don’t really care about lighter evenings, I struggle with dark mornings though, so I’m feeling slightly discombobulated and tired.

The good news is that I have another long weekend coming up so I only have three work days but I also have the feeling that they are going to be long days!

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