All change

Project 'Don't bake anything else made with chocolate' is going well - mainly because I haven't really baked anything at all due to The Big House Move and the subsequent quandary of How The Heck Does My Oven Work.

We underestimated how many little things would be wrong with the house when we bought it - I think it would have been easier to buy a 'project' property that needed ripping apart and starting again. Instead, we're just trying to fix a million and one tiny broken things left behind by the previous owners/tenants. One of which is an oven with no discernable markings. I don't know what make it is, it has no temperature numbers on the knob, it has no oven setting figures on the other knob, so if I actually manage to guess when I've turned on the oven rather than the grill, heaven only knows what temperature it's at.

I managed to bodge together a raspberry frangipane tart, after a lot of swearing, but that's the only thing I've baked since we moved in.

This morning, I made pancakes. They made everything OK again. I know they're not baked, but they tasted goooooooood.


I know I normally only share baking things with my bloggy friends, but to deviate, I must mention my uncle Jim. He's suffered with Alzheimer's for several years. On Friday he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He's gone downhill very quickly. He's comfortable in hospital now. But I don't think for long. Here's Uncle Jim and me in 1986.

Little me and Uncle Jim