The Snow Plough

The snow plough worked all night
To try to clear the drifts
But they were back again this morning, high as a man.
As she lay sleeping I saw the ploughs working
To try to clear the drifts of fear and doubt and dread

Don’t you see? I have to leave her
To go and be a modern woman
A working mother
Who juggles balls
And has a child ‘who will be fine’
But she will cry and there I will be in a meeting,

In heels and a nice dress, contributing
And pretending to have it all,
Knowing it means nothing
Compared to the huge drifts of love and conscience
I can’t plough away.

My Colourful Girl

She couldn’t stay awake with a tummy full of italian food and a morning in Skipton exploring battlements.

No-Brainer Cupcakes, or cakes for those who don’t bake

Cupcakes are really on the way out in terms of baking zeitgeist, but the fact is that you can’t really get through life without having to make some form of little bun for childrens mouths.
Here is a fail-safe recipe honed over years of not-quite right batches. Whenever I sell cakes at my stall Daisy Cakes, these are the first to go.

The trick is to weigh the eggs before you start: aim to get as near 8oz as you can, and then match the sugar, butter and flour to that amount. An electric scale helps enormously.

3 eggs, up to 8oz make weight
8oz sugar
8oz butter or stork
8oz Flour (pref SR)
1 tsp baking powder (5ml)

You can make these chocolate by substituting 2oz of the flour with Bournville Cocoa.

Cream butter and sugar, and add eggs one at a time, with a handful of flour if it looks to be curdling.

Add the flour and baking powder- and if you feel like it, a tsp of vanilla or almond or lemon extract…

Allow your toddler to help spoon the mixture in to muffin cases, about 1 mounded tablespoon of mix per case.

Bake at 180c and ice at your leisure…

Mother’s Day, 2013

There’s snow on the ground
Even though it’s March
And you are in the garden
With the Emersons.
I can see the wind whipping your feather-light hair
And your nose is turning red

The wind whistles through the flaws in the glazing
I should go and tidy up what’s left of dinner
Pots and plates are strewn on every surface
But I can’t tear my eyes away from your joyful face

You are a little girl now
And everything is on the cusp of change
I start my new job soon,
You start with a childminder,
And we desperately want another baby…
How long will it just be you?

So forgive me, grubby kitchen,
If I don’t attend you just yet
I’m watching my daughter shout her joy to the wind
And wondering how it came be
That I was blessed with you
A miracle
On this, MY mother’s day.