o frabjous day!

o frabjous day! books, recipes & other things

  • Foxes

    I find my eight-string ukulele really difficult to tune. The first two pairs of strings are one octave apart, the last two pairs the same notes, and once I’ve gone through the strings the first ones seem to have gone out of tune again. The husband kindly tunes it for me occasionally, as for some…

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  • Grand plans

    As my vague intentions of learning to use the Elna sewing machine I inherited from my grandmother never came to any sort of reality (as with most vague intentions, I suppose, but especially mine) I have been going to sewing lessons once a week. I have now got to the stage where I can (mostly)…

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  • Movement

    My ankle twinged doing one-legged squats in a kettlebell class yesterday, and today during a fake yoga class (aka Body Balance) it expressed its unhappiness at me standing on one leg. Now it’s frustratingly achey, and I am dolefully contemplating my plans to go for several runs over the long weekend. They were rather optimistic…

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  • Night rituals

    Once a night, I am often awake giving Edward a bottle of milk and then lying next to him on a swag on the floor of his bedroom waiting for him to go back to sleep. Once he seems to be satisfactorily unconscious, I push myself up in order to sneak out of the room,…

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  • Recent baking

    I was moved to another area at work occupied by rather more people than the previous area I was in (I do refer to it as Cubicle Death Farm, but only in my head and mostly in an affectionate tone), which has given me a chance to try some new cake recipes and leave cakes…

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  • Sunshine

    Edward’s current favourite book is one of my childhood picture books, and after spending many years in humid conditions in Daintree the slightly musty smell of the pages make me sneeze. “Sunshine” by Jan Ormerod is a wordless book, a series of pictures of a little girl getting up for the day, and then waking…

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  • Compound eyes

    1. I have actually taken some shots with my macro lens recently that I’m quite happy with. Like the photo of the fly above – I like its crazy compound eyes and its little yellow fuzzy chest. I still find working with the limited depth of field pretty challenging, but I’m getting more shots that…

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  • Mornings

    I slept in this morning, having scheduled my alarm for 5.40pm rather than am. Edward cried out and woke me up just after 6, and I walked down to his room, telling him to lie down and I would make him a bottle of milk. He understands this concept now and plugs his thumb into…

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  • 18 months

    When the husband and I are talking about parenting these days (something we do a lot of the time, because – parenting! It can be rather all consuming) we find ourselves saying “Oh, he’s so much fun at the moment!”. Around 18 months seems to be the stage for us where the really enjoyable part…

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  • Wrapping up – 7 best recipes of the year

    As part of smugly congratulating myself on cooking 100 new things, I had a scroll through my round-up posts, and thought I would list down my very favourite and/or most momentous recipes from the year. [Most momentous because I’ve listed the first Ottolenghi salad I made, and I know I am tediously repetitious on the…

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