Garlic and chilli chicken couscous

Although I am a keen cook, I don’t often cook, just like I’m a writer who doesn’t write. Time and space are issues with both. However I’m trying to menu plan, not conventionally as I often have no idea what I want each night but starting from this week I’ve written a list of recipes I want to make, ordered the ingredients in my weekly online shop and the list is now on the fridge and I’ll be crossing off each recipe as I go. Now when I’ve tried menu planning before I’ve liked to just chose recipes from one or two books, I still like to do that, this time I’ve chosen my newly put together collection of torn out recipes from magazines, I’ve put them in a recipe folder to create my own perfect cookbook, every recipe I like.

Anyway the first recipe chosen from my weekly list was garlic and chilli chicken couscous from Donna Hay magazine. Marinated courgettes and chicken in a lemon, garlic and chilli mixture; the courgettes then fried (should have been griddled) with the pancetta, then the chicken. The courgettes and bacon then mixed with the couscous and some parsley (first use of my new parsley plant), with the chicken cut up on top and then more (unused) marinade poured over the top. It turned out a lot tastier than my normal time starved concoctions, however it took an hour for me to make, even though it shouldn’t have really, it’s just that I’m a slow cook at the best of times (my knife skills arn’t too good) and my kitchen cluttered, small and crowded making it difficult to work, so I didn’t sit down to eat until 9.55pm, which is a bit late for me!

 

Rain, rain go away

A rare book selling event today, I had been asked and I never refuse an offer of trying to sell the stock that’s taking up valuable floor space in my bedroom. It was at (what turned out to be) a rather nice toddler group across the river from me, so just getting me and the kids there was like an operation in military logistics. I had checked out the route part way when originally offered the booking, then taken the kids part way to see if Girl Lacer could handle the walk (she’s got quite a lot of stamina for a 4 year old but even for her it was a long walk) so we decided ahead of time to get the bus part of the way there.

So I got the kids out of the house super early this morning, light rain, not too bad. We get to the bus stop, starts to rain a little more. We wait at the bus stop for a long time, three buses go past in the other direction we were there that long and the bus stop was getting increasingly crowded and although I knew the bus would turn up eventually because it was so late, it would be really crowded and we wouldn’t be able to get the push chair on the bus. So even though it was raining even more now and Girl Lacer knew it was a long walk, I persuaded her to walk. We just got to the next bus stop and low and behold the really crowded bus came past, closely followed by two empty ones! So we did manage to get the bus part of the way, to the footbridge that crossed the river. By the time we got off the bus and onto the footbridge, the rain was now torrential; poor Girl Lacer was soaked, even though she was wearing a mac and so was I, at least Girl Lacer was wearing sensible shoes, which was less than can be said for me.

We eventually made it to the really nice toddler group, the kids had a blast (in fact thinking of taking Boy Lacer next academic year when Girl Lacer is full time at school and timing isn’t as much of an issue) and I sold £25 of books and puppets, which isn’t bad. We left in time to have lunch by the river, where we got menaced by some rather menacing ducks (well when the ducks in question are beak to eye level with you because they’re on a wall, that is menacing) before it started tipping down again. We went straight to nursery and we were actually 15 minutes early (I had had visions of having to go through the main office because the gates were shut because we were late). So an eventful morning.

How to Manage Your Time as a Writer – Alison Baverstock

Mrs. Lacer was on night release tonight, i.e. I had a rare night out. I went to an event at the Kingston Readers’ Festival entitled ‘How to Manage Your Time as a Writer’, the speaker Alison Baverstock. It was interesting and a bit depressing at the same time.

Currently, where I am as a writer, is that I’m a writer who doesn’t do much writing (unless you count this blog, more on that later). Prior to Christmas Boy Lacer was still napping, conveniently at exactly the same time Girl Lacer was at nursery, so I used to get quite a bit of writing done then, I even managed NaNoWriMo. Then Boy Lacer stopped napping and I pretty much stopped writing. I have attempted to start a new project in that time and got to 12,000 words but then lost the flow at a key scene (a big problem of mine) and I haven’t touched it since. My problem is that my free time is in the evening, once the kids are in bed and I’ve cooked and eaten my evening meal, which makes it about 8.30pm – 9pm and by then I am knackered and I just can’t write. Baverstock spoke about finding the right time to write (although she did say if you have only a certain time slot to right you should be disciplined, she used that word alot) and for me it would be sometime during the day and that is not compatible with small children. The only solution may be to be patient; Boy Lacer will be (fingers-crossed) at playgroup 2 – 3 mornings a week and Girl Lacer will be at school in September (and the playgroup will be really close by, so it’ll only take me five minutes to walk back home and five minutes to walk and collect him, so that would be ooh about 1hr50min I think). Other than that, as I’m not an evening person, I have been thinking about waking up early and writing first thing. I never used to be much of a morning person either but I’ve recently started a new medication which seems to be having the side effect of making me wake up early, fully awake, I don’t know if that side effect will continue but it might be a benefit!

Other than finding the time, Alison Baverstock also spoke about finding the space, another thing to depress me. Now (any) regular readers of this blog are probably sick to death about me whinging about lack of space, but all four of us do live in a really small flat. There is no permanent space for me to work in the living room, unless you count the sofa. There is no room for a desk in my bedroom. I quite liked Baverstock’s suggestion for a shed, a la Phillip Pullman, but ours is full of junk and about to fall down.

Baverstock also spoke about surrounding yourself with the right supportive people and avoiding the negative ones, the ones who are full of disparaging remarks about writers. I tend not to tell too many ‘real-life’ people that I write, so I don’t have that problem but I don’t get the ‘real-life’ support either. I have found Susan Hill’s Creative Writing Forum and her blog invaluable though.

Other interesting points included finding creativity in your everyday life, that is filling your life with creativity, not just necessarily writing, this actually made me feel better about my other hobby; embroidery and softies, whereas I can’t write in the evenings, I do have just about enough brain power to be able to pick up a needle and thread and it massages my creative ego, as whereas a novel can take months – years to come into fruition, a softie can take a couple of night’s work and the feed back and appreciation is so much more immediate (from Girl Lacer, who’s my biggest fan, biggest commissioner and (can be) my biggest critic). I was feeling a bit guilty that I ‘should’ be writing in that time.

Baverstock also spoke about how hard it is to live with a writer, someone who is perfectly happy to live within their own heads, which was interesting and I can see that. One of my time issues, is that I need / want to spend time with my husband and in that 8.30pm / 9pm to bed time slot, what do I do, totally ignore my husband or write?

She also spoke about finding creative inspirations, actively doing things to inspire you. Me, I find a walk in the woods, a trip on the tube (for some reason, particularly Tottenham Court Road Tube Station), a good episode of Doctor Who / Torchwood / anything by J.J. Abrams / a Indiana Jones movies (guess who’s rather excited about the new one?).

She also talked about using longhand, when I write I use a word processor, my fingers flying away at the keys, which to be honest probably not as much thought as there could be, as Baverstock described it, when you use a computer you tend to be more verbose, whereas if you write long hand, there’s more thought going into it. Switching to longhand may solve quite a lot of my problems; when I use my computer I’m too easily distracted, e-mail, facebook, forums, my blog stats (lol), are all too distracting. Part of my problem with getting stuck in projects is I get so far through the project and then I have a massive crisis of confidence and think what I’ve written is complete and utter cr*p because of the whole fingers flying thing, with a little bit more thought would I be more confident? My computer is also old and failing, with a faulty screen (it goes all Matrix with great frequency), sticky keys and a bulging hard drive making it slow, it does not lead to a relaxing writing experience. Plus if I wrote long hand I’d be able to indulge in my love of fancy notebooks and nice pens! And if I wrote longhand, would it make my work more portable, even more portable than my laptop and more easy to pick up for a few minutes work even when my children are around? It’s all very tempting, unfortunately I”m currently mid project on two projects and I don’t like the idea of switching from a wordprocessor to longhand half way through.

Also talking about distractions or ‘displacement activities’ as Baverstock described them, I think you could describe a blog as a good one. I am aware that the time I spend writing this, I could be writing some fiction, like right now for example. Thing is, it requires slightly less thought to write this, I can sit here on the sofa, next to my husband watching a horror movie, my gaze can get pulled onto the TV screen every now and then and it doesn’t matter, whereas if I was writing, I couldn’t write properly like that, I suppose it goes back to finding a place to write. Also with me not writing ‘properly’ at the moment, at least with this I feel like I’m writing ‘something’.

Finally there was also talk about juggling the world of work and writing and how it’d be hard to write and have a high powered job. I quite liked the quote she used (and I’m probably paraphrasing a bit)

If you want to achieve something significant in life, it’s important to be slightly underemployed.

I can fully understand that. I am coming to terms that my dream of being a full time writer by the time both my kids are in school is probably not going to happen and I will have to rejoin the world of work, however for more reasons than just writing, I do not want something ‘taxing’, my dream job would be a part time job in Waterstones actually!

Anyway, there are two more talks from Alison Baverstock if you’re in the Kingston area;

6 May, 7.30pm Borders, Kingston – Writing from Home (about using your own life as a starting point for fiction)

20 May, 7.30pm Borders, Kingston – How to Market Yourself as a Writer

New additions

My final lot of plants arrived today; aubergines, chillis and more cucumbers (alot bigger than the last lot, which I mostly killed anyway, although I am extremely attached to my tiny survivors).

The new cucumbers are in with the old ones (and will probably completely overpower them). The aubergines (which Girl Lacer very ably helped plant, including one all on her own) are in the greenhouse as well (hopefully they’ll be ok, it’s not a very warm greenhouse) and the chillis are on my bedroom window sill. If these all produce vegetables, I could potentially have quite a lot, what with 10 chilli plants, 10 aubergines, currently 8 cucumber plants, 3 dwarf french bean, 2 peppers and the quite unbountiful amount of 10 carrots. I also have countless salad plants but I’m a bit worried about some of them, they were under fleece but I think the spinach and the cos and lollo rosso, which were near the edges and therefore had more fleece bunched over them, were suffering from lack of light, I’ve taken the fleece off, hopefully the cold / birds don’t get them, I’m wondering about a scarecrow lol! But on the bright side the mizuna and rocket are doing well and they are actually what I eat the most of anyway!

So, with all this after nursery planting, the kids got their tea late, not that they complained too much at the time, as they were both having fun in the garden. Girl Lacer was helping me plant and Boy Lacer, who I had thought was confined to the back door as I thought he couldn’t get down the rather tricky back door step, proved he could get down the rather tricky back door step, so he was gaily running round the garden with just a nappy and a t-shirt on, no shoes and discovering the neighbour annoying game, at the grand age of 2 1/2 of ‘bounce the ball against the wooden fence’, how long before I have to get to know my neighbours even better as I’ll be round there all the time retrieving balls!

The Sunday Salon – Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell AGAIN (mild spoilers)

Morning Saloners! Unsurprisingly I’m still reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, I’ve just this moment abandoned it on p332 as it was getting a bit boring (although I will continue it). I haven’t had much time for reading this week again as usual, although for a really good book I will make time and for me, so far, this book, although ok, does not make that category. I’m finding the scenes between Strange and Norrell so far a little dull compared to the trials that Sir Walter Pole’s servant Stephen Black is going through, I’m really enjoying those bits, describing how he’s enchanted to spend each night at Lost-Hope and  spends his days receiving unwanted gifts by ‘chance’, sounds rather horrific to me.

See you next week for more comments on Strange and Norrell, I predict ooh getting to about p400 and something next week!

Fence update and other ramblings

More exciting news from the world of fences, after my last (and first) post on the matter, where we thought we’d discovered that we actually owned the falling down fence at the bottom of our garden, after our neighbour complained that ‘our’ fence was in such a state of disrepair it was blocking entry into his garden. We checked the original lease and yes it seemed we did own the fence, but me and Mr. Lacer were convinced we’d seen another document that said the fence wasn’t ours. Luckily for us (estimated cost of replacing the fence – £300), the lease was actually changed in the 90′s and the fence in question is now theirs!

So without the prospect of having to replace the fence, Mr. Lacer’s weekends are now slightly less busy. Mr. Lacer has been as busy as a beaver and after lots of complaints from me along the lines of “I’ll die of embaressment if I show any of my friends this garden”, it’s now a lot tidier. A new lawn mower has been purchased (we’d been battling along with an old thing left by the previous owners, but the blades kept flying off), there’s been lots of trips to the tip and (and the green gardener in me hates to admit this), we’ve applied weed killer to the patio, it was literally a jungle out there, our patio is so old and cracked there were lots of weeds with the roots buried under the concrete which were impossible to remove, so we had to bite the bullet. Our ultimate (if we have money) plan, is to rip up the patio, which is far too big for the size of the garden anyway and grass it over, with a small patio at the bottom of the garden, then the weeds will be far easier to manage.

So with no fence to build, Mr. Lacer just has a bunk bed to build and a bedroom to repaint (just touching up really, white – not the most practical colour for a kids bedroom). We’re off to order the bunkbeds today and get bed linen and stuff; Boy Lacer is so ready to get out of his cot.

The weather was so lovely yesterday, doesn’t look as good now. Boy Lacer is full of the joys of spring and is talking more and more each day. On Friday, when me and Boy Lacer went to pick up Girl Lacer from nursery, we actually didn’t take the push chair, which is something I’ve dreamt about. Ok, I had to carry him half the way there as we had to walk quite quickly, but even that was nice, it was getting a bit windy and Boy Lacer said in my ear “It’s windy”, it’s so nice that he’s initiating conversations now. I heard him reading to himself a Charlie and Lola book in his cot this morning, lots of “Charlie and Lola”, “Pink milk is my favourite” and “Football!!!” (Charlie and Lola, particularly Charlie who he adores, football, rockets, cars and dinosaurs are his absolute favourites). He’s turning into such a little boy, my previous mothering experience with small children being with Girl Lacer, I am amazed at what such a sterotypical little boy he’s turning out to be, even though I swear we haven’t been encouraging it and he get’s soooo grubby, Girl Lacer, at 2, was a lot lot cleaner!

The Sontaran Stratagem (Spoilers)

The Sontaran Stratagem opened last night with quite a Sarah Jane Adventures style opening, complete with crazed megalomaniac teenager in big house (which thinking about it, I’m sure I’ve seen it before in SJA). But then the meddling journalist (second so far in four episodes, is RTD trying to say something?) meets a rather gruesome end and we’re out of the territory of truely kids TV. There’s scary sat-navs and baked potato aliens with interesting ideas on worker relations. Martha’s back and for someone who used to like Martha, I am rather shocked to say that Donna (who once again was brilliant last night) makes a far better companion.

Last night’s episode was the first of a two parter, so I will delay judgement until next week, but so far (and specially considering it’s a 2 parter, which can be a bit weak) it’s looking good. My only complaint, and this stands for the entire series so far, is that the acting from the regular cast members is so good, it really does make some of the bit part actors look wooden. It’s like suddenly switching from the high quality action – drama – adventure that Doctor Who is, to a bad episode of Casualty or Eastenders.