And Now for Something Completely Different

For the last few years, my dad has been running a drama workshop with the intention of making a feature film. He wrote and developed a script loosely based on local characters and events, but funding issues and lack of commitment amongst particpants and other factors means that so far the film hasn't happened. However, he made some useful contacts in the media world and re-started the group a few months ago, this time working on a short film script and, as a promotional tool, Act 2, Scene 2 of Macbeth. Despite Dad roping in Mark, I've always tried to stay out of the way when he's doing these things, mostly because I can't quite muster the enthusiasm required, much less commit myself every week for long periods of time. I find it hard enough to go for a run three times a week, so I make exercise my priority. Nevertheless, I found myself agreeing to take the part of the maid in Macbeth. Of course, there is no maid at the start of scene 2, but as they are not shooting the whole play, it is necessary to use what is known as a cheat to establish the character of Lady Macbeth. So at 8.15 last Sunday morning, a professional make-up artist was applying a silicon compound to my face to even out my skin tone and I was wearing a period frock. My dad was sporting black hair and a matching beard (he's naturally blonde) and out friend playing Lady M has a long, dark wig over her blonde crop, a velvet gown and a menacing air. We were filming in the Castle Keep, which stands not far from the River Tyne and was built in the 12th century by Henry II. and the camera and lighting crew were all set up when we arrived. We were shooting in the guard room and it wa crammed with equipment - a light powerful enough to recreate daytime, a sound boom, cameras, monitors and a sound desk. It was all very professional looking and quite exciting. Act 2, Scene 2 is quite short, a two-hander between Macbeth and his wife. It's a pivotal moment in the play, as this is when Macbeth, believing he is fulfilling the fist part of the witches' prophesy, has killed the old king, Duncan. Having helped Dad with his lines over the last few weeks, I felt that I knew the scene as well as the actors did. What was fascinating to watch was how often they had to go over each tiny part of the scene. They were both word-perfect, but each piece had to be filmed more than once; to get close-up shots, appropriate 'cuts' to enable the actors to move to the next spot on the set, extra bits to ensure continuity. The other thing that was unexpected was how often filming was halted because of noise. The Castle Keep has thick, stone walls which you'd expect to be fairly sound-proof. I was amazed by how much got through - the trains going over the High Level Bridge right outside was not a surprise - but cars, children and even birds meant that some sections were re-done three or four times. Sadly, we ran out of time before my cameo was filmed! The end of the scene still needs to be done too, so I will be back down there in a couple of weeks. So, does it make me feel eager to tread the boards? Mark has recently taken part in a play produced in conjunction with one of the local high schools and thoroughly enjoyed it. While I can't imagine volunteering for any am-dram any time soon, it was good fun and really interesting to see what's involved, so I wouldn't mind helping out here and there. And extra work is always a possibility as a way of making money while travelling...

Kitchen Experiments

I really enjoy cooking, and am keen to expand my repertoire. However, a search on the internet found no cookery schools closer to me than Yorkshire, and none of the local colleges offer basic courses, preferring catering and hospitality-led training instead. So I decided to trawl through some of my recipe books and learn how to make some traditional dishes and perfect them. I will sign up for courses where I can, but what with the wedding and only me working, I can’t really afford to go South at the moment. I have signed up for a tapas course, run by a woman in Durham but held in Newcastle. This is taking place in June and I’m really excited. I’ve also found a sushi course, which I assume is run by Yo! Sushi, as there’s an outlet in Fenwick and I think a restaurant somewhere in town. In the meantime, I have tried three new recipes, all with great success. The first came from a low-fat, low-calorie recipe website (I’ve already lost a stone, so I need to keep going with this!), but was amazingly simple and very tasty. Chicken, wild rice and shiitake mushroom soup is pretty much just that, although it also uses onion, carrot, garlic and chicken stock. And I added a pinch of chilli flakes, because I operate on the principle that no recipe can’t be improved by the addition of a little spice! My version was not identical to the recipe given, but it turned out well.

Next, I made frittata, as I’ve been reading a lot on how good eggs are for you and it’s a simple but enjoyable meal. Ours was chorizo, green pepper and spring onion (what there was in the kitchen!) and was really good. I was pleasantly surprised and quite relieved, as frittata is basically a fat omelette! I think some variations will be made soon.

Finally, and still on the egg theme, I made scotch eggs, as Mark has been quite keen to try these since a friend of mine made these for us. Again, they are fairly straightforward, although it was a bit of a faff to wrap the sausage-meat around the egg! I baked them rather than fried them, so they were fairly healthy. The sausage-meat of course is quite high in fat and calories, so I suppose to make them even healthier you could use the meat from low-fat sausages (a recent discovery and now obsession of mine – in a sarnie with tomato sauce they’re pretty good!) if you could be bothered to squeeze the meat out of the casings. I don’t think anyone sells low-fat sausage-meat!

Future Plans

Mark and I have been thinking about what we’ll do next for quite a while now. The wedding is now taking place in September and I’m delighted to say it’s all sorted with minimal fuss and effort! And hopefully cost! We are going to get married at the registry office in Gateshead, as we aren’t religious. This will be followed by a small afternoon reception at a local pub, the nicest one in Gateshead and just down the road from the civic centre. We’ve got the rooftop terrace so hopefully the weather will be nice so we can get some good photos. The evening do will be at the arts centre in Newcastle. It has a large underground room which is often used for plays and music. My brother, a professional musician, has asked to play, and an old friend of mine has offered his band as his wedding present. Likewise, the invites and the cake are gifts and a cousin and one of my best friends are doing the photos. We have found a caterer and I have organised the flowers. The only headache was my dress – I didn’t want anything too fancy and my one trip to a bridal shop was not the most fun! I have spent a couple of months looking at department stores with bridal sections and on the high street but nothing stood out. Finally, I decided to get one made, and have met a lovely lady who will make me exactly what I want for about the same price as a dress in a shop – although I know people will pay thousands for them! After the wedding we are not planning on having a honeymoon but are going to do some travelling. We have come across a website where people worldwide advertise for help on their farm, in their home or their hotel in exchange for board and lodgings. I’m really taken by a hotel in Jaipur which is looking for help to run the reception and the bar, both of which I’ve done before. Really, though, we'll be happy to go anywhere and have an adventure, so not ruling anywhere or anything out! Although I have never especially considered hospitality, I do think that some months travelling about and being open to whatever opportunity is presented to us could really help us find something we’re keen to do long-term. We don’t want to stay in England, so who knows?

Grief

A rather odd post title, I suppose, but one which will explain my long absence. In early February, my ex-boyfriend died suddenly and too young. For many reasons, this has been extremely difficult for me, not least because we split up three years ago, and nobody tells you how you'll feel. What can I say about the last three months? I've been quieter than I've been since I first started talking, cried more than I thought possible. It was a massive shock, and although I found out later he had been unwell for a couple of weeks, no-one had told me. I think they all expected him to get better, although I have tortured myself with variations on why he didn't say anything. His parents invited me to the funeral, which was very kind of them, as although we parted (reasonably) well, I haven't seen them since it ended. His father asked me to visit the chapel of rest with him as well, which was easier than I thought, although it was the first dead body I had seen and I hated that it was him. A lot of people were shocked when I told them I'd done that, but it was a mark of respect and I felt I owed him that. My dad came to the funeral to act as a buffer, as he was concerned that some people would 'blame' me - we live in a small, old-fashioned working-class community where everyone knows each other's business, or likes to think they do. I spent much of the wake looking after my ex's 90 year old grandma. So in the intervening weeks, has it got easier? Yes, to an extent. However, I think about him first every morning and frequently throughout the day, some days more than others. My boyfriend has been wonderful, but of course it's hard for him to see where I'm coming from, particularly as he and the ex didn't get on (even before we were together) and my parents seem to have made a decision not to mention him; likewise my friends recall only the negative side of the relationship. This is not unreasonable as they obviously were privy to my decision to end it, but... I think there are two things that make it difficult for me: the first is that I still live in the area where he's from and we lived and socialised. So many things in my surroundings can trigger an unexpected memory, and I look for him constantly. The other issue is that he and I went to Australia together for a working holiday, which was the best experience of my life and I know his too. Much of the time there was just the two of us, and that period was the closest we'd ever been. It is impossible for me to accept that all the memories of that trip are now only mine, and no-one else knows what we did, remembers odd things we found funny, interesting or weird. I have had some very kind emails from the people we met while we were living in Melbourne, who had fond memories of him. So I'm starting to pull myself together, but it's hard. As a small aside, one thing that really did help was running, and it still is. I find that half hour remarkably therapeutic, despite the fact that my regular route takes me past a score of memories every time. I went for a run on the morning of the funeral and it calmed me down and was a great way to take up part of the morning, rather than fidgeting around the house and getting uptight and more anxious than I ultimately was. And it's certainly helping me now, too. Cheers KS xxx

The Virgin in the Garden - AS Byatt

The main thrust of the book is the unconventional Potter family: Bill, schoolmaster, patriarch and terror of almost everyone who crosses his path, Winifred the seemingly quiet housewife, and their three children, Stephanie, Frederica and Marcus.

The backdrop to their story is the production of a play written by a fellow master at the school where Bill teaches - the heartthrob Alexander Wedderburn, who has inspired lust in both Potter girls and the wife of another colleague.

Alexander's play is part pastiche, part homage to Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I and a host of other writers I'm sadly not as familiar with as I should be. Frederica wins the part of the young Elizabeth, and finds herself in all sorts of sexual scrapes as she tries to grow up fast enough to attract Alexander.

Frederica is 17, physically awkward and unpopular but with a belief in herself nurtured by Bill. In an attempt to be more mature, she has an unfortunate experience with a travelling dolls salesman on the moors of Goathland, and more than one seedy encounter with the patron of the play, Crowe, whose house is used for much of the rehearsing. Byatt writes these scenes beautifully, making the reader feel both sympathy and squeamishness for Frederica. It's hard to say whether she learns much from these experiences, but as this is the first book of the quartet,it will be interesting to watch her develop.

Elder sister Stephanie has returned from Cambridge to teach at her former school (where Frederica is about to sit her A-levels). Her father had hoped for more for her, and it is mostly out of spite to him that she has taken up this post. She soon becomes entangled with the local curate, which sits at odds with her own atheist beliefs and inspires fury in her father. Stephanie appears considerably less in the second half of the book. although I have read synopses of the other three books and get the impression she is deliberately relegated to the lowly position of housewife, mother and frustrated scholar.

The third Potter child, Marcus, was the one who I struggled with the most. He is 16 and not only socially inept but withdrawn, silent and brooding. Marcus has an unusual flair with mathematics, but suffers from what is probably some form of obsessive compulsive disorder, and as the story progresses becomes increasingly disturbed - he is constantly seeking patterns in nature and worrying about shifts in light. Marcus confides in (yet another) school master, the science teacher Lucas Simmonds, who sees Marcus' behaviour as an ability to sense 'other' elements in the world - spirits, God, or something darker. The parts where Lucas and Marcus conduct experiments were interesting, but I really struggled with some of the concepts and what Marcus was thinking.

A brief word on Alexander Wedderburn seems appropriate, although he was less of a character and more of an idea, in that much of what we learned about him was through other people - how he excited the females and impressed the men. He was not entirely likeable but he was interesting and his sexual exploits also made for fun reading.

I'm not going straight into the sequel, but it is the next book in my pile after a one-novel break, as I'm interested to see how the Potter family grow (or fall apart, depending on your view). I did find some of it heavy going, and the frequent literary references (as in Possession) made me feel a bit dim and inadequate, although it also encouraged me to broaden my reading matter.

It would be entirely wrong to compare AS Byatt's work to that of her sister, Margaret Drabble, who I absolutely love, but it did cross my mind that the story of Stephanie and Frederica was in some way influenced by their relationship - according to accounts, the two writers fell out quite badly some years ago and haven't spoken since. Margaret Drabble's stories are much shorter and are more concerned with day to day life - what I like about her is that she writes women who are the same age as her when she creates, so you really get a sense of her life at the time.

Anyway, I'm sure greater minds than mine have considered this, and the most important thing is that Byatt is an author I am really starting to enjoy.

Pineapple Chicken Stirfry

I came across a recipe for pineapple stirfry quite some time ago but didn't copy it down properly, and only noted that the main ingredients were pineapple and ginger! So I did a search on Allrecipes, which is exactly what is says on the tin. I found a couple of recipes which I modified slightly and came up with a stirfry.

Mark actually cooked it, but I helped to gather the ingredients, which is just as important! We combined water, cornflour, soy sauce with a small amount of the tinned juice and added the chicken. I used the veg we had on hand as well as what the recipe called for, so we were easily over our five a day! We chucked in mangetout (not something we have in very often!), onions, spring onion, mushrooms, carrot, peppers, pineapple and beansprouts. I've just discovered that you can freeze beansprouts, which is great, because I've never been able to use a whole bag before they go brown and rot.

The stirfry came out looking rather grey, which was probably down the mushrooms, but tasted great. The ginger gave it a kick and the veg made it nice and crunchy. It's better for you to make your own rather than using the sugary sauce from a jar, so we'll definitely be doing this again.

A Few Random Thoughts

Last Saturday I turned 29, which seems really old! I celebrated by going for a meal with the parents and then out on the town, which ended in the predictable way - drunk!

I'm now on the wagon; one week so far and feeling pleased with myself! Last week I went running four times and I've been three times this week, so this seems like progress! I've changed my hours at work, with the intention of going for a run first thing, so once I manage to get up at a proper time, I'll do that!

Kitchen-wise, I made to vic sponges for my birthday (one for work, one for friends) which went down well, and this weekend I made two lemon cakes. No photos, cos they were eaten straight away! A bloke at work came in with four different kinds of cake on Friday, including a really impressive-looking Devil's Food Cake. I didn't try it, so I can't say how tasty it was, but I've got baking envy now! My sponge cakes always taste good, but the presentation can be a bit lacking, so I'm inspired to be more adventurous. I don't have a particularly steady hand though, so not sure how the decorating will go!

I'm also experimenting savoury-wise, and have been cooking with couscous. Couscous is not something I used to like, but I've discovered the secret is to use stock to make it tasty. My boyfriend had a hard time understanding that stock is not the same as gravy, but I think he's got it! So far, I've made couscous with feta cheese and sun-dried tomatoes (easy and super-tasty) and prawns in lemon and coriander with cucumber. The other good thing about it is that it's low in calories too.

On the book front, I am wading through The Virgin in the Garden, by AS Byatt. I am a huge fan of her sister, Margaret Drabble, although their styles are completely different. I read Possession at the end of last year, which is also a hefty tome. It takes a while to get into her books, because she's heavy on descriptions and there are a lot of literary references I don't always get, but it's worth persevering with.

Finally, I collected my engagement ring yesterday! It was hand-made for me, as I wanted something quite specific which turned out to be hard to come by! I managed to find a jeweller in town who would make it, so I now have a silver ring with a yellow topaz. Photo to follow!