The Gentle Art of Domesticity

Ten years ago I’d have laughed if someone had told me that when I reached my 30s I’d buy a book with the title of The Gentle Art of DomesticityI’d have laughed, in fact there are people who know me now well (thinking Mr. Lacer) who would laugh to. I am not a domestic person (says she who lives in chaos) but that as Jane Brocket defines so well at the beginning of the book is domestication not domesticity, to me domestication sounds like something humans did to wild buffalo thousands of years ago (or whenever) to turn them into cows, domestication is the daily hum drum of remembering to turn on the dishwasher and vacuum the floors and I’m not very good at that, domesticity is as Brocket describes it ‘creativity within the domestic space’, now I like that, so I brought the book.

The Gentle Art of Domesticity has a few mixed reviews on Amazon, with criticism that there is little actual instruction and no index. Yes there is little actual instruction and no index but it’s not that sort of book, it’s more of a book you dip into, flick through the very nice photos and think “mmm I wouldn’t mind having a go at something like that” and then you can read the accompanying text and go to the resource section at the back and find out more, it’s inspiration basically and I have had to admit after looking through the book and finding her photo of her wavy crochet blanket, crochet suddenly seems way more appealing and I’ll probably do more research into that. Just like I’ll be following her method for growing basil this year (I’ve never had much success before) and I’ll be trying out her recipe for Battenberg cake next time my sister comes to tea, who knows what I’ll find next time I flick through. Generally though as someone who is already a keen cook but on the other arts of domesticity very much a novice, I thought the baking recipes looked particularly nice and maybe an index would have been nice for those but there’s always book marks, maybe I could embroider one?

Continuing on the subject though of Brocket’s recipes I noticed on Amazon that she has another book coming out in July this year, called Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer, a collection of recipes inspired by classic children’s stories, sounds fantastic, one definitely to add to my pre-order list, I just hope there’s an index though for this one.

On one final note Jane Brocket also has a blog called Yarnstorm, which is in a similar style to her book, the blog is definitely worth a look.

Posh Old Bags in Waitrose

I’ve moaned about them on here before (not being able to understand that lifts go up as well as down to the car park where they’ve parked their jags) but I had another encounter today with a posh old bag today. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Waitrose, maybe I’m a gullible advertisers wet dream but I do believe Waitrose’s advertising slogan ‘good food, honestly priced’ is actually true (most of the time, no way were their own brand roast potatoes ‘good food’), their own brand stuff like cheese and bread tastes far nicer than their competitors versions (I’m lucky, there’s no monopoly where I live, I have a choice between Waitrose, Asda and Sainsburys) and okay they’re not the cheapest but that’s probably because they’re not trying to rip off the farmer and also if you want your food to taste nice, well a 23p loaf of bread, how much of a chance is there that  that is going to taste nice? Actually even though Waitrose basics probably cost more I actually spend less in there than in the other two as I get seduced into buying the ‘special offers’ at Asda and Sainsburys and end up spending more (see I told you I was gullible), whereas Waitrose isn’t so much into their special offers, so I actually get what I actually need, which is far better all round. Anyway I’m digressing a bit, much as I love Waitrose, some of the people who shop in there are right old bags who probably think young mothers with children should have special segregated shopping hours of oh about 1/2 hour each day to coincide with the old biddies G & T time, grrhhh! Today one of the ‘lovely old dears’ barged past me whilst Boy Lacer was out of the pushchair so yes we were walking a bit slowly but he’s only just learnt to walk, going “Excuse me please!”, which sounds polite in theory but tone of voice is everything and it was a very very rude tone of voice. Maybe she knew what she was doing with that tone or maybe she realised after it popped out of that badly made up mouth of hers because after she barged past she turned round to look at me or maybe she sensed my evil eye boring into the back of her neck because yes I wasn’t looking overly happy about her rudeness so she goes “No need to look at me like that, I said please”, yes but it was the way you said it dear. Actually I didn’t reply, just stepped up the evil eye a bit, actually the original expression on my face wasn’t that much of a step up from my standard expression on my face when shopping with two small children, a buggy and a scooter in a major shopping destination. So anyway I narrowly avoided a fight in the bakery section and continued my shopping. The place was full of them though today, it was actually rather priceless when we got the lift back up to ground level, as soon as the doors to the lift slid open Girl Lacer sprung out of the lift like someone trying to audition for the pre-school all female casting of the Batman movies and she was going for the part of the Joker, actually she was just being exuberant (and when you’re 4 you’re allowed to be exuberant) but there was a row of chairs opposite the doors to the lift and today is was full of furred up old biddies and the looks on their faces when they saw Girl Lacer, hah! They’ll still be probably in this nation’s hospitals and nursing homes when Girl Lacer starts paying her taxes and it’ll be her taxes in a old person heavy society that will be paying for their care! Rant over.

Back to normal (sort of)

Well, Mr. Lacer is back at work today (and walking around at the moment grumbling because he can’t find a matching pair of shoes or socks), Girl Lacer isn’t back to nursery until next Monday (well at least I think she isn’t, feeling slightly paranoid about my disorganisation) and the Christmas tree came down yesterday, doesn’t seem much point having it up now that Mr. Lacer is back at work and the lights blew the day before anyway. The Roses have all gone (hoorah) and we’ve been similarly gorging ourselves on 24 (on DVD) over the holiday season and only have a few more hours left of that to.

Think me and the kids will do some shopping this morning, make the most of not having to be back for 12.50 as usual. It’s my birthday tomorrow and I need to get the ingredients for my own birthday ‘cake’ and make it myself tonight (cue violins) plus I can’t resist the lure of the bookshop as usual.

Talking of my birthday tomorrow though, I’m in a bit of a dilemma, I sell my children’s books at a particular venue the first Thursday of every month, i.e. tomorrow. I never do particularly well at this venue and have been thinking of stopping, the only thing stopping me stopping is that without this venue I have no other regular venue, so I’m probably not going to sell very well tomorrow anyway and on top of that the forecast says snow which could mean this venue is even quieter than normal, so I feel like I should be doing something slightly more fun (and less depressing) than not selling books somewhere.