The story behind this image, I was watching a skinny young Heron fishing yesterday and he was hopeless, aim, fire, miss, aim, fire, miss, repeat. Late into the afternoon he eventually found a decent sized half dead roach, and I thought well you’ll live to fight another day. This morning he had a couple of misses, with me murmering ‘call yourself a Heron’ in the background, when he caught a small fish and fired up with new found enthusiasm waded into the water and aimed, fired and came up with this, a very lively Perch. I was so pleased.

After last weeks flapjacks which were truly historic, I felt we needed more in the way of cake and to try something a little  fruity and new to us when Apricot, Pistachio and Honey Upside-down Cake popped into view from Martha Collison’s lovely book Twist. The first cake I ever baked was an upside down pineapple cake, in junior school, I was aged about nine, I might have been younger. Our junior school had its own fully fitted kitchen (and carpentry room and a swimming pool!) so we would have been cooking once a week from the first year, but very basic foods such as bread and pastry, they soon whizzed us up to the heady heights of kedgeree and cottage pies, biscuits and cakes. I can remember going to secondary school and the cookery teaching, at least for the first couple of years,  seemed a bit pedestrian compared to what we had been achieving.

I digress, the big reveal,  I can still remember the wonder of the big reveal when  the cake was turned upside down and the glistening brightly coloured pineapple circles and bright red glace cherry’s in their centre came into view.  It was magical, such a pretty cake for a child to make, it is almost guaranteed success, even if it was a bit heavy, which I have no doubt that mine probably was, it is none the worse for it, just adding a bit of ballast to the heavy, glistening with syrup fruit on top.

So when I saw this grown up version of my favourite pineapple upside down cake, I knew I had to try it. I love the pistachio and honey flavours that are used in the delicate flaky pastries called Baklava that come from the Ottoman Empire, so to combine those flavours with a gently cooked fresh apricot enrobed in vanilla cake and combined with a fresh cup of tea would be, well, heavenly  – it was certainly worth a try. Firstly make some golden caramel. Add a little butter, let it foam andpop it into your cake tin and swirl it around until its level and flat.  Now before this stage I think you were meant to line the tin but for some reason I was going with the method I had used many years ago to make an apple tarte tatin.  Which was to use a relatively new pan so it wouldn’t stick and to turn it out quickly, experience for me shows that anything more than a minute sitting before turning allows the fruit and caramel to harden too much which is when you have apple or in this case apricot stuck to the tin.  And also because I am predominately an idle reader and had sped read that bit! Freshly shelled pistachios roughly chopped with my mezzaluna, normal knives still apply but these are so much fun, apricots at the ready. I would have used more apricots, and had bought two pounds extra  because I knew greedy guts would dig in. I think it was a bit of a strain for hubby to leave me as many as he did.  Lay them on the caramel which has hardened by now, well mine had and sprinkle the pistachio’s in the gaps and then top with the vanilla sponge mix. Which had a very interesting method, one I hadn’t used before. Fifty minutes later.. you have this.

I swirled a sharp knife very quickly around the edge to loosen the cake and placed a large plate on the top and flipped, a couple of knocks on the bottom of the pan and it had released and voila, one perfect cake.

It smelt heavenly and it tastes divine, I think it would be lovely for a dinner party, buffet or afternoon tea, or a very decadent reviver half way through the morning,  warm or cold, perfect.

How I would love that to be feeding a cuckoo, that would be a wonderful shot, I live in hope.

Apart from when a Hobby has just left a tree I have never managed to catch it mid flight. If you think terns are difficult with their looping flight pattern or oyster catchers seem a bit quick, they have nothing on a hobby’s turn of speed.

I was minding my own business when a hobby decided to do a spot of fly catching and after watching him for a second I realised he might, just might, come out at a certain angle of a pool and sure enough he did. Almost crashing into the reeds he turned, regained controlled and was off, all in a split second.

After what seems an eon I have finally made it back down to the nature reserve to sit in a hide for most of the day, fingers crossed in search of Kingfishers..  And for the first time ever in my kingfisher search in that particular hide I was rewarded.  Next a tern flew by, dipped into the pool for just a nano second and flew off with their own supper. Perfect day I’d say. 

Hubby and I have always thought that the house we bought would be a temporary home and we would move again within a few years, this was twenty five years ago.  Instead the beauty and size of its rooms charmed even if its small back garden did not and slowly we just settled into it.  But still we  held fast for a move.

For the last few years we have been house hunting, from exploring all local areas to coastal towns and cotswold villages and after another extensive search yesterday I finally realised that we would need to put a considerable chunk into the pot to buy our dream home and for not that much benefit.  When your considering spending  a considerable sum just so that one can have a detached home that is a little nearer the town, one has to question one’s sanity. We live in a beautiful spot, a lime and oak tree lined avenue with fresh air and countryside on our doorstep, good links to a spa town, our county town, 2  big city’s and other historical towns, and only an hour out of London,  what’s not to love.

At long last I feel settled, we’ve made new plans that feel right for us and hubby is feeling the change of mood too. It’s all good.  Now you’ll have to excuse me I’ve got to go and knock a nail in the wall to hang a piece of art that was bought a few months ago, new holes in walls are fine now  and plan my courtyard garden, because  we are staying put.

I was having a lovely few moments flicking through Martha Collison wonderful book on baking called Twist making mental notes about cakes I would like to try but don’t at that precise moment have all the ingredients to bake them with, when Flapjacks hit me square between the eyes. ( Although I am getting much better at the buying of the ingredients,  now I make a mental note and then place the cookery book that is involved in the execution of that weeks cake on the table by the laptop so when I do the weekly online shop, I can flick to the page and order the ingredients, it works like a charm. No more trudging around a supermarket racking one’s brain thinking ‘what was that item I needed?’)  Oooh Flapjacks, those buttery, crunchy yet soft and chewy,  sweet and sticky treats, what is not to love. I’ve been making flapjacks for nearly 50 years, firstly at my mother’s aprons strings, then in school cookery classes,  next in various lodgings during cold winter nights and onto feeding hungry boys during summer holidays, although then they would barely last the day, but not recently and they only take four ingredients. Butter, brown sugar, golden syrup and oats. Weighing all the ingredients to Martha’s recipe, mine being long since forgotten,I melted the butter together with the golden syrup and sugar until all the sugars were dissolved. mixed the gloopy buttery syrup into the oats.then poured it into a lined baking tray and flattening it evenly with the back of a metal spoon and popped it in a hot 180 c oven for 15 minutes. let it rest for 5 minutes when it came out the oven and then cut it into squares and left it to carry on cooling in the pan.  When they were cool, I broke them up and popped them in a cake tub. Reserving a sweet treat to have with a well deserved cup of tea.

I really liked Martha’s recipe, the flapjacks were luscious compared to my old recipe which had probably came about from maximising the amount of oats to sugar and butter ratio, Martha’s flapjack was sweeter and richer and much more delicious, they are definitely on the to do again list.  

I recently joined a book club, I used to read avidly but sometimes I stop reading as I don’t find an author that I gel with and then I get lost when I look around a bookshop and just don’t know in what direction to go. So I thought I would join a book club and allow others, more knowledgable than I to guide me and so far it has been one of the best decisions I’ve made.

The book this month was My Grandmother Sends her Regards & Apologises by Fredrik Backman. 

Book description

‘Granny has been telling fairy tales for as long as Elsa can remember. In the beginning they were only to make Elsa go to sleep, and to get her to practise granny’s secret language, and a little because granny is just about as nutty as a granny should be. But lately the stories have another dimension as well. Something Elsa can’t quite put her finger on…’

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy. Standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus-crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa runs to her grandmother’s stories, to the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas. There, everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

So when Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has hurt, it marks the beginning of Elsa’s greatest adventure. Her grandmother’s letters lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and totally ordinary old crones-but also to the truth about fairytales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises is told with the same comic accuracy and beating heart as Fredrik Backman’s bestselling debut novel, A Man Called Ove. It is a story about life and death and one of the most important human rights: the right to be different. Seven-year-old Elsa does.

Some might call Elsa’s granny ‘eccentric’, or even ‘crazy’. Elsa calls her a superhero. And granny’s stories, of knights and princesses and dragons and castles, are her superpower. Because, as Elsa is starting to learn, heroes and villains don’t always exist in imaginary kingdoms; they could live just down the hallway.

As Christmas draws near, even the best superhero grandmothers may have one or two things they’d like to apologise for. And, in the process, Elsa can have some breath-taking adventures of her own . . .

About the Author

Fredrik Backman is a Swedish blogger, columnist and author. His debut novel A MAN CALLED OVE was a number 1 bestseller across Scandinavia, has sold over one million copies worldwide, was a Richard & Judy summer read in the UK and an instant New York Times paperback bestseller, and has been made into an acclaimed film. Fredrik’s subsequent novels, MY GRANDMOTHER SENDS HER REGARDS AND APOLOGISES and BRITT-MARIE WAS HERE, also went straight to number 1 in Sweden on publication.

My own review is ‘oh wow’ the lightness of language as it weaves the story with such tender tiny details is delightful.  You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, your heart will stop as you speed read to find out what happens next, and you’ll linger over the buttery biscuit crumbs and smell of strong coffee.  It truly is a beautiful book, I’ve gone out and bought the next book in the series Britt-Marie today and will start with a Man called Ove as soon as I have finished that.