How to Turn a Disaster Into a Success

I recently made chocolate banoffee pie for some friends. All was going fine, my pastry wasn't perfect but it was very passable and it was all coming along nicely until the cream incident.

Since I'm a lazy cook, I put my cream into the mixmaster and stepped away to chop up the chocolate. I looked across a couple of times and it was still happily whipping, when all of a sudden liquid starts flying out of my mixmaster, and in my bowl was buttermilk and butter.

I couldn't believe that I'd just made butter. Historically butter was challenging to make, and involved a lot of time and effort. Without even trying, I'd made it and with my last full tub of cream too :(

my newly made butter - draining the liquid

I made an SOS call to my nanna who told me it couldn't be saved. Both of us were laughing so hard on the phone that we could barely talk. My Nanna told me if I drained the butter to get the buttermilk out of it I could possibly use the butter.

Luckily I had a half a container of cream in the fridge so my dessert could still be saved, and despite the huge mistake it turned out quite nicely.

 The finished product - Chocolate Banoffee Pie

The next day David and I felt like making pancakes for breakfast. One of the key ingredients listed was butter, so I got to use my new creation.

Melting the butter

 Finished product - rosewater and strawberry pancakes. With a drop of butter.

In conclusion, homemade butter is awesome! It turns out that it wasn't such a bad mistake to make.

Library Gossip

  National Library of Congress- Photographer maveric2003 

See License Terms for this image

I'm really liking the 5 rules of library etiquette, it's really true. If only people would follow it, then we would get far less complaints about mobile phones in particular. 

I'm thankful that even my worst day at work is never anywhere near as extreme as this library discovering bedbugs in a DVD in the return chute *shudders at the thought*. The only thing I ever had to keep an eye out for whilst working at the public libraries was discarded needles (apparently this did happen for time to time but fortunately never while I worked there) and that would have been bad enough but bedbugs would have to be one of the worst things to find. The bugs are now gone thanks a vigilant pest control inspection.

Pima County, AZ, Public Library has just hired the first dedicated library nurse in the USA. I think this is amazing, and often needed. Libraries attract an amazing diversity of people, including financially struggling and mentally ill patrons. It's a great community incentive to have a dedicated person to help these people most at risk. You can read the full article here.

From Little Things Grow Big Things

I've always liked gardening but renting has been really restrictive for me. I don't want to plant anything I intend on keeping in the ground, so I'm growing a small garden in pots.

I have to reign myself in so that I don't have too many pots. This is hard because I'm attracted to so many different plants and vegetables and it is easy to think 'just one more plant can't hurt'. Knowing that we will be buying a house I really don't want to deal with heavy pots. Moving is hard enough without moving a garden too.

I couldn't resist growing strawberries though. Strawberries are my second favourite fruit (after cherries) and they are relatively easy to grow. Like most plants all they want is a little water and some sun, and they give so much back.

This has been an experiment for me though, because I don't know much about growing strawberries at all (just that they taste delicious). So you can imagine my delight when I got to pick my very first strawberry. They look a little odd (or at least not like the immaculate ones in the shops) but they taste 10 times better.

There are lots more blossoming and about to ripen

My gardening bargain though, was my pomegranate tree. It was in the 'sick bay' of my local hardware store. My grandmother has always taught me that most of the plants that end up in the 'sick bay' are inadequately watered by the stores and just need some sun and a good watering and they'll recover. So since it was significantly reduced in price I took it home, gave it some TLC and here it is today:

I wish I had a before photo. It was once the saddest, scrawniest little tree imaginable.

Latest news and things I have been reading

I'm loving these secret bookcases, partially because if money were no object I would totally have one in my home. The Narnia inspired one is my favourite, but I love the idea and practicality of hiding a messy laundry.

I really love this opinion piece by Annabel Crabb to the AEC.  It's so true that we take for granted how well run our electoral system is.

In other news, I recently got engaged♥ It's taken me a month just to get used to wearing the ring (and I still gaze at it sometimes). I'm super excited though, I get to marry my best friend in front of the people closest to us.

Planning a wedding is still quite a daunting prospect. Unlike most young girls I never thought much about my wedding as a child, or had it all planned out on my head. I have stocked up on wedding planning books thanks to my local public library and I'm beginning to feel a little more like I know what I'm doing.

Whilst at the library looking for wedding books, David found me this book on the shelf:

I've only read part way through but I have to say it is pretty good. I totally chose it originally though for it's awesome cover.

On My Wants List...

A dolphin experience at Coffs Harbour. Swimming with dolphins is on my to-do-list.

This birdhouse from storybookdesign.

Scratch Map - scratch off countries as you visit. Potentially very rewarding (and expensive).

This garlic zoom, sure beats the ordinary garlic crusher.

Britain as Florence Tells It

David and I got back from Britain and Ireland at the beginning of this month. I could bore you with details of our trip but I think Florence tells it better in pictures:

About to leave Sydney airport to begin our adventures.

 No visit to London would be complete without visiting the Library

 Getting Lost in Hampton Court Palace maze

The famous Tower of London Bridge, before protestors closed it for a few hours

High Tea - Because that's what you do when in England!

National Leprechaun Museum - Only in Ireland ;)

Cardiff Castle in Wales

 Bath

 Stonehenge

Whitby

Stirling Castle in Scotland

Best Thing on the Trip: By far, for me it was visiting Scotland. Partially because it is my heritage but mostly because the scenery was stunning. The heather on the hills was breathtaking beautiful. I can't choose just one location though because I enjoyed them all.

Worst Thing on the Trip: Getting sick. Dubbed the 'superbug' or the 'plague' we both got a terrible cold (I don't think I have ever been so sick from a simple cold) and we both got secondary infections from it. It's always expected that you'll get something overseas but it really makes exploring hard some days.

Weirdest Thing on the Trip: Being on the Tower of London Bridge exhibition when protestors started jumping out of a window right in front of us. You can read the news story here

An amazing day!

Guess what I did today? It's something I've always wanted to do.

Hint: It involved danger (or so my brother thought, he sent me a text to say it's been nice knowing me).

It also involved:

And This:

Cheetah - Photographer James Temple. See License Terms for this image

And it looked like this:

I can't speak highly enough of the National Zoo and Aquarium's Meet-A-Cheetah experience! It was so amazing to go inside the enclosure and meet such a beautiful animal. The Cheetah's purring was so loud David thought it was construction noise at first.

More to come on my overseas trip soon. We didn't get much internet access while we were away and it was surprising liberating.