Portia faces life

I've just tweaked my blog, Eat Well Every Day with a new picture & some other minor changes. Would appreciate any comments.

Have already done that - twice! Including moving to another state. Sadly, the love didn't last, but I have a great life in my adopted home city.

This morning I made a square spice cake - something I haven't made in 20 years or more. I don't know why, but I just felt like making it, & fortunately I had all the ingredients. It uses buttermilk, so I blended Greek yoghurt with soy milk, which seems to have worked, as the batter was the right consistency, & as you can see, the cake cooked perfectly!



I need to practice huge self-control & put half the cake away - immediately - in the freezer, so I don't pig out on it over the next few days. I'm also going to give a chunk to a friend this afternoon.

The recipe suggests a broiled icing made with butter, cream, sugar & chopped nuts, but I can't be bothered with that. This cake will be ideal warmed slightly and topped with cream or full-fat yoghurt, or simply spread with butter*, like a teacake - which is what I'm going to do now!

*Although I'm on a low-carb regime, I am allowed some carbs, with the proviso that they're accompanied with fat, which slows the carb digestion &avoids the insulin reaction. Cream, lots of cream and butter!!

or so it seems. I've been here, in this unit, for almost a year, as the naked magnolia outside my balcony attests. It flowered not long after I moved in.

It's winter, & even in sunny Sydney it's cold and there's an icy gusty wind. Time to be sitting by a cosy log fire, sipping mulled wine, or warm mead or some such. Only, this being Sydney, there's no log fire, just an electric heater, & these days I can't drink much booze, mulled or not!

But I can enjoy home-cooked pumpkn soup, and the weather was perfect last weekend, when my son and his gorgeous girls visited me, and we had a great 24 hours in Newtown.

Also, I'm really enjoying knitting again, now that my brain is more or less working OK. Knitting and writing. As well as my short stories, I've started writing poetry again, after a break of 10 years.

Despite everything, life is pretty darn good!

KIng George gate.jpg
Originally uploaded by Newtownia.

Spent a lovely couple of hours wandering thru Sydney's Hyde Park on Sunday morning in gorgeous spring weather. There was a festival of some sort in the main part of the park, so I took the path less travelled & rediscovered a delightful little 'royalist' park tucked away in a back corner.

I say 'royalist' because the parklet, ornamental gates & 1950s fountain were dedicated by Queen Elizabeth 2 to the memory of her father George VI and grandfather George V in 1954 when she visited Australia for the first time, & I am a republican.

(The gate is not on fire, BTW - it's some sort of banner showing thru the ironwork

There are more close up pics of the gate and the delightful fountain on my Flickr page.

Another gluten-free loaf chugging in my breadmaker, and pumpkin soup bubbling on the stovetop.

I've almost finished Kepler, just have to sew it up & make the i-cord thingie to complete the neck edge. I might start on the matching hat tonight. It has a band of the Celtic cable pattern which is about half the height of the cap, then a simple top, knitted flat.

A grey, drizzly day, so I've been nursing a cold and getting on with knitting the pinky-purple silk job, Tatania. I'm half-way up the
front and will have to start the armholes soon.

However, as winter has finally appeared, I might better put this one away & haul out the unfinished Kepler. I've been invited up the mountain for a weekend of Mid-winter Yule fest at the end of June, & Kepler would be just right for that. There might even be enough yarn left to do a quick 'woollie' hat to match.

No news, just more atmospheric pics

Sunset 27:4:10.jpg
Originally uploaded by Newtownia.

One of 3 photos I took of this evening's dramatic sunset. it lasted long nough for me to find my camera & take some shots!