Well, not too bad a day, as I had a relatively late start and got busy with assorted household things, and also some stacking, splitting and chainsawing. I got a fantastic booking for next April, a big event where I'll be performing to over 100 people - and a good fee promised, too.
During the afternoon I made a pumpkin loaf for the York Rotters Pumpkin Evening. I used a wholemeal loaf which I made into breadcrumbs in the blender, and also a big spoonful of very dry Meridian peanut butter from the base of the pot, which all blended in very nicely. I then added a whole onion, chopped, and a red pepper, chopped, and about a third of a pumpkin, grated, and a handful of chopped mixed nuts. For flavouring I used some red wine, Balsamic vinegar, bouillon and mixed herbs... and a dash of cumin. Then to bind it, an egg. I mixed it really really well, and turned it into a greased dish which I'd lined with mixed seeds. I microwaved it for 10 minutes, and then turned it out onto a baking tray and bunged it in the oven on Mark 6 for 20 minutes... and left it in the oven with the gas off for 20 minutes before taking it to St Nicks in a cake tin.
I also took one of my boys and a friend who lives up the road, both of whom enjoy carving pumpkins and had a good evening. I took my biggest pumpkin for the competition... mine weighed no more than 2kg, the winning one was over 40kg. I spent most of the evening peeling dried pumpkin seeds, and then sorting out fresh ones from the pulp. Two people requested my nutloaf recipe, so I'll send them this link.
The three of us got home at about 8pm and our visitor stayed for another 45 minutes or so. I had a fairly relaxing evening... washing up, sorting out pumpkin seeds (I have a bucketful to deal with!) and keeping the stove going.
Showing posts with label Pumpkin Day at St Nicks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pumpkin Day at St Nicks. Show all posts
Quite an early start as although my work in Leeds starts at midday, the train times mean I had to leave on the 10.11 train. And before this, I had to deliver the pumpkin soup to St Nicks.
So, I was up before 8 and had a shower and hair wash, Gill made my sandwiches and ironed my costume, I breakfasted and packed, loaded the bike. Gill was worried about my taking the preserving pan of soup on my bike, but it was quite easy and I got it to St Nicks un-spilled and with the loose-fitting lid still on. Catherine, our head Rotter, was pleased to see this.
Then onto the station and got my day return to Cross Gates. Once there, it was a 15 minute walk up a hill to the Church hall where Swiis Foster Care were having a half-term fun day, with about 20 children and the same number of adults invited. I arrived an hour early, as the next train of the day would have meant me getting there only minutes before being due to start, so I got the earlier train and had an hour to wait. However, there was an aerobics class going on so I sat quietly at the back and half-read, half watched this... I've never seen anything like it!
They finished at 11.30 and I got set up, got changed and the guests and organisers started to arrive. One of the staff, Gael, is a friend of mine from the Northern Green Gathering, and it was lovely to see her again. I was glad to be in costume to welcome the children, and I played throw/catch with my juggling balls, although one got lost. At 12.15 I started my show, and they were obviously completely un-used to live interactive entertainment. But quite soon I had nearly all of the children and a couple of the adults up and doing things, and the show lasted just over an hour.
As usual, whilst they were eating, I inflated a unicycle-wheel full of modelling balloons and then got everybody, including all the adults, having an attempt at making balloon animals. Lots of fun, finishing just before 3pm.
Got changed, got paid, got back to Cross Gates where I finished my NewScientist and was back in York for 4.20. Home via Country Fresh, where Martin had got me God knows how much unsold stock... I was only able to take two boxes of it on my pannier rack as my trailer was full of unicycles and juggling equipment.
I had a quick tea as soon as I got back, the boys were finishing theirs prior to going out to the St Nicks Pumpkin evening. I took my big pumpkin down, to enter it into the giant pumpkin competition, despite it being not much bigger than a human head. I decided to go via Country Fresh and picked up two sacks full of compostables and a big tray of grapes in punnets, each punnet having some mouldy grapes in, but, crucially, some good ones too! I left them in the punnets... and went to St Nicks and arrived at the same time as Gill and the boys who had walked down.
The pumpkin evening was very well attended, with quite a few folks I knew, including Jeremy Piercy, Jim and family, and Robin, to name but a few. My boys both carved a pumpkin, I had mine weighed and it was 24 lbs, and the biggest of three entrants! It looked like my medium pumpkin was the winner of the Giant Pumpkin Competition! Unfortunately, when the judge of the pumpkin carving arrived, Anneliese, and she chose her first, second and third from three age categories, neither of my boys won anything... but I won a new model of wormery called a Worm Cafe, see this (silent) video about how to use it! I was amazed.. I really hadn't thought I'd win. And it's worth close on £100! I balanced it precariously on top of the sacks of compostables and walked home with my family.
A quiet evening, slicing apples and sorting and blanching grapes. More raisins in a few days!
So, I was up before 8 and had a shower and hair wash, Gill made my sandwiches and ironed my costume, I breakfasted and packed, loaded the bike. Gill was worried about my taking the preserving pan of soup on my bike, but it was quite easy and I got it to St Nicks un-spilled and with the loose-fitting lid still on. Catherine, our head Rotter, was pleased to see this.
Then onto the station and got my day return to Cross Gates. Once there, it was a 15 minute walk up a hill to the Church hall where Swiis Foster Care were having a half-term fun day, with about 20 children and the same number of adults invited. I arrived an hour early, as the next train of the day would have meant me getting there only minutes before being due to start, so I got the earlier train and had an hour to wait. However, there was an aerobics class going on so I sat quietly at the back and half-read, half watched this... I've never seen anything like it!
They finished at 11.30 and I got set up, got changed and the guests and organisers started to arrive. One of the staff, Gael, is a friend of mine from the Northern Green Gathering, and it was lovely to see her again. I was glad to be in costume to welcome the children, and I played throw/catch with my juggling balls, although one got lost. At 12.15 I started my show, and they were obviously completely un-used to live interactive entertainment. But quite soon I had nearly all of the children and a couple of the adults up and doing things, and the show lasted just over an hour.
As usual, whilst they were eating, I inflated a unicycle-wheel full of modelling balloons and then got everybody, including all the adults, having an attempt at making balloon animals. Lots of fun, finishing just before 3pm.
Got changed, got paid, got back to Cross Gates where I finished my NewScientist and was back in York for 4.20. Home via Country Fresh, where Martin had got me God knows how much unsold stock... I was only able to take two boxes of it on my pannier rack as my trailer was full of unicycles and juggling equipment.
I had a quick tea as soon as I got back, the boys were finishing theirs prior to going out to the St Nicks Pumpkin evening. I took my big pumpkin down, to enter it into the giant pumpkin competition, despite it being not much bigger than a human head. I decided to go via Country Fresh and picked up two sacks full of compostables and a big tray of grapes in punnets, each punnet having some mouldy grapes in, but, crucially, some good ones too! I left them in the punnets... and went to St Nicks and arrived at the same time as Gill and the boys who had walked down.
The pumpkin evening was very well attended, with quite a few folks I knew, including Jeremy Piercy, Jim and family, and Robin, to name but a few. My boys both carved a pumpkin, I had mine weighed and it was 24 lbs, and the biggest of three entrants! It looked like my medium pumpkin was the winner of the Giant Pumpkin Competition! Unfortunately, when the judge of the pumpkin carving arrived, Anneliese, and she chose her first, second and third from three age categories, neither of my boys won anything... but I won a new model of wormery called a Worm Cafe, see this (silent) video about how to use it! I was amazed.. I really hadn't thought I'd win. And it's worth close on £100! I balanced it precariously on top of the sacks of compostables and walked home with my family.
A quiet evening, slicing apples and sorting and blanching grapes. More raisins in a few days!
First thing in the morning (OK, after breakfast and emails, so at 10am) I went to Country Fresh to pick up the second lot of pumpkins for the St Nicks pumpkin festival evening next Wednesday at 5.30pm... fun carving and free food, all made with pumpkins!
I got 11 of them, another 10 for St Nicks and one to take home to form the basis of a pumpkin soup I've offered to make for the evening.
From St Nicks I went into town to see my friend Anita who is back from Spain for a week. She opened the door looking happy and slightly disheveled. A few minutes later Bruno came down looking equally happy. It's obvious they are delighted to be back together. Making up for lost time.
Anita made me a cappuccino and offered me chocolate bread, and all three of us had the most amazing discussion. Anita is someone I can talk to about anything as she's very broad-minded and experienced. And I'm glad to get to know Bruno a bit better. A very enjoyable hour.
And back home via Freshways who had two sacks of 'resources' for me. A good lunch, finished the tomato soup from a couple of days ago and started making another tomato-based dish as we are over-run with slightly sad tomatoes, perfect for cooking with and too good for composting.
At 2.15 I headed off to see David who is in the early throes of getting a publicity leaflet together. I was happy with what he'd done so far and hopefully he'll do an equally good job on the reverse side.
Home to an hour of compost heap building and at half five came in, washed and headed out again to the Minster this time, to meet Rachel Semlyen and Kate Lock who have been conspiring to do a 350 picture with a photographer friend they have, John from The Star. They had devised an ingenious way to get a really good image, using cardboard templates and LED torches, and the camera on a tripod with a long exposure followed by hand held flash guns from several different angles to get the best lighting. The results are amazing and I'll post it here when I can. The photo will be sent to 350.org and will probably be shown internationally with many others. Tomorrow is a big day with loads of symbolic actions to show our 'leaders' how much we care about the outcome of the Copenhagen talks in December. I'll be attending the York Wave tomorrow morning.
I got home feeling very elated and Gill had made a pasta, cauliflower and broccoli bake with the tomato thing I made earlier. What a team!
I really REALLY enjoyed seeing a programme on one of my favourite bands, Kraftwerk. Brought back loads of brilliant memories. I grew up with this predecessor of hip hop and dance music and somehow got myself an early album of theirs... it's pretty industrial but interesting textured sound. The cover looks like this:
anyone know what it is, as there is no information on the cover, or, if I remember correctly, on the discs inside?
Gill and I had a game of Scrabble and it was very close all the way through, but Gill won.
I got 11 of them, another 10 for St Nicks and one to take home to form the basis of a pumpkin soup I've offered to make for the evening.
From St Nicks I went into town to see my friend Anita who is back from Spain for a week. She opened the door looking happy and slightly disheveled. A few minutes later Bruno came down looking equally happy. It's obvious they are delighted to be back together. Making up for lost time.
Anita made me a cappuccino and offered me chocolate bread, and all three of us had the most amazing discussion. Anita is someone I can talk to about anything as she's very broad-minded and experienced. And I'm glad to get to know Bruno a bit better. A very enjoyable hour.
And back home via Freshways who had two sacks of 'resources' for me. A good lunch, finished the tomato soup from a couple of days ago and started making another tomato-based dish as we are over-run with slightly sad tomatoes, perfect for cooking with and too good for composting.
At 2.15 I headed off to see David who is in the early throes of getting a publicity leaflet together. I was happy with what he'd done so far and hopefully he'll do an equally good job on the reverse side.
Home to an hour of compost heap building and at half five came in, washed and headed out again to the Minster this time, to meet Rachel Semlyen and Kate Lock who have been conspiring to do a 350 picture with a photographer friend they have, John from The Star. They had devised an ingenious way to get a really good image, using cardboard templates and LED torches, and the camera on a tripod with a long exposure followed by hand held flash guns from several different angles to get the best lighting. The results are amazing and I'll post it here when I can. The photo will be sent to 350.org and will probably be shown internationally with many others. Tomorrow is a big day with loads of symbolic actions to show our 'leaders' how much we care about the outcome of the Copenhagen talks in December. I'll be attending the York Wave tomorrow morning.
I got home feeling very elated and Gill had made a pasta, cauliflower and broccoli bake with the tomato thing I made earlier. What a team!
I really REALLY enjoyed seeing a programme on one of my favourite bands, Kraftwerk. Brought back loads of brilliant memories. I grew up with this predecessor of hip hop and dance music and somehow got myself an early album of theirs... it's pretty industrial but interesting textured sound. The cover looks like this:
anyone know what it is, as there is no information on the cover, or, if I remember correctly, on the discs inside?
Gill and I had a game of Scrabble and it was very close all the way through, but Gill won.
I did lots of paperwork today... I renewed our house insurance with the Co-operative Insurance Service, and got 500 points on our membership dividend. I sorted out some travel arrangements for a Fiddlesticks gig in Leeds next week. I got a pass code retrieved for a voluntary group's bank account. I did various other things involving emails, letters, the phone... But this took most of the morning. I also got an unintelligible phone call from a sales person from Titan Telecom which took a long time (I am never rude to these people, never put the phone down on them) but I also wrote a polite complaint email to the company afterwards.
Around lunchtime I went down to Country Fresh to buy and pick up some pumpkins for next week's Pumpkin Celebration at St Nicks. I got three in my trailer, one in each pannier. Came back via Freshways and got waylaid with the ever-jovial Raj, which meant I didn't get back for lunch until nearly 2pm.
Gill went to Lord Deramore's to pick up our youngest from his fieldtrip, and arrived back at nearly 5pm. He'd had a great time and was full of stories of exciting activities.
I went down to Country Fresh again to pick up their compostables, and ordered another 10 pumpkins which I'll pick up on Friday, probably needing two trips. They aren't small!
I had an interesting tea of a couple of reject sweetcorn on the cobs which I cooked and stripped off the cobs, with oyster mushroom and some rice left over from yesterday, with half a jar of 'chicken tonight' sauce (which doesn't have chicken in it) which was given to me by Gladys who doesn't eat food past it's best before date... but I have the constitution of a scavenging freegan, and pretty broad tastes, so I quite enjoyed it. I wonder what I'll do with the other half?
So a pretty quiet and unexciting day.
Around lunchtime I went down to Country Fresh to buy and pick up some pumpkins for next week's Pumpkin Celebration at St Nicks. I got three in my trailer, one in each pannier. Came back via Freshways and got waylaid with the ever-jovial Raj, which meant I didn't get back for lunch until nearly 2pm.
Gill went to Lord Deramore's to pick up our youngest from his fieldtrip, and arrived back at nearly 5pm. He'd had a great time and was full of stories of exciting activities.
I went down to Country Fresh again to pick up their compostables, and ordered another 10 pumpkins which I'll pick up on Friday, probably needing two trips. They aren't small!
I had an interesting tea of a couple of reject sweetcorn on the cobs which I cooked and stripped off the cobs, with oyster mushroom and some rice left over from yesterday, with half a jar of 'chicken tonight' sauce (which doesn't have chicken in it) which was given to me by Gladys who doesn't eat food past it's best before date... but I have the constitution of a scavenging freegan, and pretty broad tastes, so I quite enjoyed it. I wonder what I'll do with the other half?
So a pretty quiet and unexciting day.
