kestrel

it seems that we are to be given Michael Howard as Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition. I know I’m not alone in finding this extraordinary. Good leader today in the Guardian, which pretty much sums up my thoughts.

Aliss (see icon) has just brought perlmonger a gift – a mouse, of the furry persuasion, which she very kindly dropped on his keyboard.

it was a deceased rodent, which is probably just as well.

photographic evidence here

for some time now – well, about a fortnight – I have had an urge to Bake A Cake. Lord knows why … although I’m a slightly better than competent cook, I’m absolutely useless at the patisserie side of things. I don’t even have any cake recipe books.

this inexplicable urge has been accompanied by a yearning to make bread; not with the breadmaking machine which is currently languishing in the loft (because we don’t actually *eat* much bread), but the real thing – mixing and kneading and proving and all that.

in a mad fit last weekend, we attempted a sourdough starter – this is currently festering in a container on top of the fridge. Red organic grapes in a muslin bag, flour and water. It looks vile at the moment, and will probably invade Poland before this week is out …

I blame ulygan, whose postings about what sounds like an idyllic existence in rural Scotland make me positively green with envy. Given her last post, I suspect that things are not as rosy as I read them, but it’s inspirational stuff nonetheless.

yesterday we bought bread and cake making books. And last night I popped up to the local village store to buy some dark brown sugar, as all mine had transmogrified into a solid lump. And I took some marg out of the fridge so it would be creamable.

but still no cake has appeared chez Jordan. “There is no excuse”, you all cry. But you haven’t seen The Cupboard. The cupboard where we keep dried fruit and Valrhona choccy chunks and honey and treacle and syrup and glace cherries and nuts and jams and all the other accoutrements of bakery, including the aforementioned huge lump of brown sugar (and icing sugar and caster sugar and granulated sugar and so forth) – never let it be said that I don’t keep full store cupboards. But, *BUT*.

but as soon as you move *anything* in that cupboard, the demons inside move everything else, and it all falls out on top of you. I hate it. We need MORE KITCHEN. And more bookshelves, and more cat space, and more everything. Our stuff > our house.

so if you’re after a nice slice of cake, don’t count on me to provide it. Not before the local bakery opens tomorrow.

perlmonger very nobly volunteered to do the Sainsburys run.

Did you get the things we needed?
not a bad effort. 10 bottles of white wine for me (obviously feeling guilty about yesterday’s whisky run), some economy mince for the cats – god forbid they read the label – and five cans of salmon also destined for feline scoffing.

and a nice bunch of flowers and a copy of Panther for me! Installing it on the downstairs iMac (the Panther, not the flowers) as I trype.

didn’t he do well?

what did *I* do? I researched cat links on the web, of course.

there’s a Fast Show quote for pretty much any occasion. Yesterday’s was:

Did you get the things we needed?
no, but I got a glass teapot, three very expensive bottles of single malt whisky (and one equivalent Kentucky Bourbon), and two organic sirloin steaks at £13, if you please. The alcoholic beverages were for perlmonger, who is fond of a tipple of an evening. He has a wide range of such things, but they all seem to be running out at once. Tragically, I can’t drink whisk(e)y any more – it doesn’t agree with me. Just like coffee and red wine. Life is barely worth living.

we shouldn’t be allowed out, really. Three cookery books, one novel, a haul from the health food shop, and – foolishly – a quick pop into our favourite kitchen shop. And I only wanted some muslin, honest.

in other news, I did some (to me) hideously complicated ColdFusion/mySQL work yesterday that actually functioned as I want it to – even perlmonger was impressed. Surely it’s not possible that I am turning into A Programmer?

cos perlmonger and I have to actually *write* all the backend code – or, more accurately, bolt it all together from other work we’ve done – but www.catsconnected.com is up and running.

we *think* it should be a nice little earner, and we get the excuse of going to all the cat shows to publicise it, and charge them to expenses :)

we went to Torpoint. We have returned *without a kitten*.

however …

we’re off to Torpoint (near Plymouth, in Devon) today.

to look at a Burmilla kitten. Just *look*, honest.

I did theladyeve’s fiendish meme, yesterday, but had the results mailed to me. But as everyone else is publishing theirs … here’s my Colorquiz result

all you unfortunate Windows users can get a decent application!