I had planned to sort out the bedroom today, but Mr. Lacer was sorting out the under stairs cupboard (I should point out here that they are not our stairs, they are the stairs belonging to upstairs, but the access to the under stairs is in our flat, so it’s our cupboard and it functions as pretty much the closest thing we have to a loft). Previously our under stairs cupboard, bar a few small shelves to the side, had no shelves, so everything was heaped on the floor, which was unfortunate every time someone came to read our meter, which they do very frequently round here, as the electricity meter is also in our cupboard. So there’d be the knock on the door, I’d open it, there would be the meter reader, my heart sinks and I have to say, everytime, “Can you check our gas meter first, that’s in the kitchen” and then when the meter reader went into the kitchen, I’d have to fling aside the pushchairs in front of the cupboard door and burrow like a demented mole through the pile on the cupboard floor, until I could find a tiny gap for the meter reader to shine his torch through. So after five years of doing that, Mr. Lacer, the love, has finally completely shelved the cupboard, so boxes can be pulled in and out, making it far easier for that meter reader and the bonus, we now actually have somewhere to put our vacuum cleaner. But for Mr. Lacer to do all that, he had to dump the stuff that was in the cupboard, somewhere else, which turned out to be the bedroom I’d just started tidying up, so I had to abandon that idea and let the bedroom get even messier.
So to keep myself amused I made some square jam tarts, square because I couldn’t find the right circular cutter for my tart tin. The pastry was shop brought and the jam left over in my fridge from last time I iced a cake. The inspiration was from Fay Ripley’s Family Food book, although she at least in that, knew where her circular cutter was. However I think the square look is quite nice.
I also made Fay Ripley’s tomato sauce today, a basic sauce made out of passata, onion, garlic and balsamic vinegar. It smelt absolutely amazing when cooking but was a little bland to eat. It would make a great base though for the addition of other ingredients such a chilli, pancetta or a dollop of pesto.
When I wasn’t cooking or pushing Boy Lacer round the park in his tricycle, I was hiding out on the kids’ bunkbed reading Homemade
I’ve never made homemade peppermint tea before and was surprised how superior it was from the dried stuff in the tea bags, all you have to do is crush the mint slightly with the back of a spoon. The picture was taken shortly after I added the water, the water shortly afterwards turned into a nicer shade of green.
This evening I had a go at gift bag prototype 3, as Girl Lacer has a party to go to tomorrow. This time I made button holes in the fabric before making it up into a bag. It worked better, but it was a pain trying to get the ribbon round, so next time I may thread in the ribbon before sewing up the bag. The present was more Muji pencils and this time a pack of make your own postcards made with watercolour paper from the Tate.
I’m not sure I’m the best person to review a book of short stories, as historically I’m never that impressed by them, I like short stories by Neil Gaiman, as I like anything he writes and I don’t mind the occasional short story collection with stories written by multiple authors, as I like the differing styles and although I may hate some of the stories there’s always the promise of finding something bright and glittering. So a book of short stories, all by one person and that person isn’t Neil Gaiman? I was taking a risk here but I was intrigued by
after reading about it on 
