Chocolate Almond Cake

This is luxuriously soft, subtly almond-y and studded with rich dark chocolate chunks. I think it would suit a strong velvety latte, on a sunny but brisk autumn morning, setting the world to rights or reading the paper at a pavement table.

1. Butter a 28cm tin and line with greaseproof paper.

2. Mix 150g butter with 1/4tsp salt until soft. Cream in 100g sugar, then add 5 egg yolks and mix well.

3. Chop 150g dark chocolate, and add to the mix, along with 150g ground almonds.

4. Add in 100g flour and 1 tsp baking powder.

5. Beat 5 egg whites until stiff, then beat in 100g sugar to produce a shiny mixture.

6. Mix egg whites into other mix.

7. Bake at 180C for 50 minutes - done when a knife comes out clean.

8. Yum

(Recipe from 'Chocology', a leafet produced by some Swiss chocolate board or similar - sorry I can't give a proper reference; I found it at my parents' house and don't have to hand!)

Autumn

We walk a lot, baby and I. I've got the zero to ready-to-go thing down to a number of seconds now. Sometimes some fresh air and a change of scene is exactly what's needed to change grizzly and potentially explosive to calm and potentially (hopefully!) sleepy.

When the weather's like it is right now - sweetly crisp and floodlit with cold sunshine - then it's a glorious treat to be able to meander round London's fine green spaces.

Watching others enjoying the seasons.

Looking down on my lovely vast city from a calm, green vantage point.

Rugged up in scarves and mittens, enjoying the cold night air.

(Hampstead Heath by day, Primrose Hill at night)

The saga of the indoor plants

I like plants. I buy them; they look lovely. They die. I wait around hoping they'll revive. Eventually I sadly throw them out.

B said I shouldn't buy any more until I can keep at least one alive; he's not keen on the dying foliage school of decor. I had to agree.

I bought some mint plants feeling hopeful. They sat there for weeks until I managed to clean a pot and buy some compost for them.

I watered them (nearly) every day, felt quite proud.

Mint plants only suffer one disease - mint rust. Mine got it. According to the internet some 'stressed' plants can also get aphids. Guess what mine have millions of? How did I stress them out, poor loves?!

On the to-do list then:
1. Get rid of aphid covered rusty mint
2. Try rosemary

I will get one to stay alive!

Date, Walnut, Cardamom Cake

I may no longer pluck my eyebrows every day, go to the cinema in the evenings or always know what day of the week it is, but one thing I can and do still do is bake.

This one is soft, sweet and warmly spicy. Would go beautifully with a light black tea - Jasmine perhaps - rugged up inside on a rainy day.

Adapted from The Glasgow Cookery Book

1. Chop 150g dates and sprinkle with 1tsp bicarbonate of soda. Cover with 250ml boiling water and leave 30 minutes.

2. Cream 50g butter with 100g soft brown sugar. Add 1 egg, soaked dates, 50g chopped walnuts, and 200g wholemeal flour that has already been mixed with 2 tsp ground cardamom and 1 tsp baking powder. Mix well

3. Put into greased, floured tin and bake for about an hour at 180C

Brevity

I keep starting posts and not finishing them before I need to feed/distract/change etc.

I think I need to be more succinct!

And then...

That last post was scheduled. About the time it was posting here I was meeting the little person who'd been growing inside me for the previous nine months.

So suddenly in a new world of baby. It did feel like stepping through a door and leaving behind the old life; things I used to think and do occur to me as though I dreamt them. Now she's here it's like she's always been here, she was always meant to be here, nothing else could have happened.

So, in short:

it's a girl

she weighed 8lb3

and had a lot of hair

ten fingers ten toes big lungs

birth was: objectively - quick, straightforward and very good; subjectively - just horribly painful and distressing

the first few weeks - bleeding, aching, lactating, learning, waking, feeding, marvelling, lots of crying, lots of lovely peaceful moments, everything new and fragile and wonderful, freezer meals, first few forays out, dad at home taking care of me and her and everything

then - days on our own, honing pram skills, healing up, meeting other babies, learning how to do everything one-handed, learning how to relax and trust it'll be okay, cooking, washing, feeding, changing, trashy tv, gaining weight (her), back in the biggest jeans (me)

now - smiles! 8 hour sleeps! finally feeling like emerging from immersion in this real now baby world and blogging a little again...

(PS Although I love reading about other blogger's babies, I feel a little weird about putting my baby out there on the internet for some reason, hence the foot picture. I don't intend to turn this into a baby blog; hopefully as I get back into cooking and crafting and cafés and thinking about things other than baby, I'll have enough else to write about!)

Tiny shoes for tiny feet

Finishing the mittens kickstarted me into a little knitting surge over the last weekend. I finished these two pairs in about four days I think. Hooray for small things! They're both from Blankets, Bears and Bootees by Debbie Bliss .

These are my favourites. I had a bit of an issue with the pattern and had to change it a bit as I just couldn't work out how it worked as it was written, but happy with the end product. They remind me of mini ugg boots (in my household, having an Australian mum, uggs are not fashion statements but just the most practical and comfy slipper/houseshoe. We used to be terribly embarrassed when Mum wore hers outside and thought it hilarious when they suddenly got all trendy and our Mum had led Kate Moss et al by years!!!)

They're done in a merino-cashmere-acrylic mix, which is lovely and soft, and more importantly, machine-washable. Part of a stash I've been trying to use up for ages, so good to have little projects to just use the odd half ball.

These are cute too, and slightly easier, although they seem to be designed for very fat feet! I had a problem with this pattern too - there was an obvious mistake in the number of stitches at one point. Knitted in some Jaeger cashmerino I had left over from a sale purchase I meant to use for something ages ago and never did, so again good to use some of that up.

So, I'm sure there are a whole host of practical things I've forgotten to get in for when baby decides to make an appearance, but at least it'll have stylishly warm little feet!