It's an interesting thing that goes on when one or other of the kids is away for the weekend.
A is on her first Brownie Camp, and things have altered here quite a bit in her abscence.
She comes in age between F and S, and now these two seem to be getting on really well, though bickering a lot more than usual. They don't often get to do stuff on their own together and its fascinating watching the change.
S in particular is missing her presence in their bedroom and seems very fidgety at bedtime.

poor little LC tho is still out of it with her illness.
She is showing the first signs of recovery and ate her first solid food since Wednesday teatime this morning - a half slice of toast for breakfast.
She wasn't sick - a miracle - and even got up off the settee this afternoon to come and sit wrapped in 23 layers of clothing in the garden to watch the others play.
She has more or less done nothing but sleep, cry and drink water for three days

Seems I've been tagged.
I never spend enough time in blog land.

Sorry to all the blooggers i read but never comment on.

Anyway, here goes. I SO don't do this stuff...

A = Artistic. Apparently. It's my excuse for random wanderings…

B = Birdsong. Once a birder…

C = Christian. Works for me

D = Daddy. Its what I am and what I do

E = Easy going. Easily gone.

F = Friendly.

G = Generous. With time and heart.

H = Hair. Facial. Ridiculous.

I = Me. Be true to yourself

J = Jesus. Doing, becoming, creating.

K = Kind. brings its own reward

L = Love. And happy to be lost in it

M = Music. What else is there?

N = Nature. That too. But nature is music

O = OpenMinded. Ours is not to judge

P = Passionate. believe it and it will happen

Q = Quiet Man. John foxx. iconic genius

R = Reasonable. Beyond reason. Annoying sometimes

S = Spiders. No thanks

T = Trust. In yourself and make your own way

U = Understanding? Could do better

V = Vague. At times. Appears evasive

W = Wishing and wanting. Waste of time. be happy withyour lot.

X = We don't go there.

Y = because it hurts uss, precioussssss

Z = ZZZZZ. bored now. Bed now

The flute begins to dance
And all eyes follow her but mine
Drawn, instead to the beautiful, white-skinned pianist

The long, green dress of the beautiful white-skinned pianist
Moulding the shape

The long, slender fingers of the beautiful white-skinned pianist
Create the form

The long, red hair of the beautiful white-skinned pianist
Reflects the tone

The long, sculptured neck of the beautiful white-skinned pianist
Pulls in the heart

Someone somewhere sings
And at stage leftt
A jewel in the right ear of the beautiful white-skinned pianist
Catches the light
So captivating
Charmed and amusing

The beautiful white-skinned pianist becomes
A million tiny fish
Flashing silver
Then still as one

With swan-like grace
And a smile no-one sees
The beautiful white-skinned pianist fulfills
An unplayed role
Delicious understatement of her place

She claps her hands without moving her arms
Affectionate and warm
Giving thanks for taking all those eyes away
A timid bow
As the waves of their applause crash on her beach
And standing flustered
Hiding from the lights
That burn the grey green eyes of the beautiful white-skinned pianist
Snatching up her papers
Out of time

©birdsong 2007

Turner Sims Concert Hall, university of Southampton.
Probably happens all the time, but tonight was my first time.

A big night in the middle of a Big Week for Alice.
Playing in the annual City schools recorder concert for the first time.
In front of 300 and she was SO nervous.
messed up many times but enjoyed herself more perhaps than I have ever seen before.
Just me and her.
Another never Moment.

The pianist in question is Helen Reid.
Who is very protective of her images...

Very, very good though.
Inspiring. As you can tell

So, the new iMac 2GHz Intel Core Duo 20inch widescreen is safely installed up here, in order that I can work silly hours again over the next few weeks to get the World Atlas finished.
VERY super it is too, especially now that I have connected the Creatures to it. Superb sound - should bring a whole new dimension to listening to music.

But there are three problems which I will need to sort.
For some reason I can only send emails, not receive any??
The printer won't work and just flashes for hours.
My Office 98 won't install because OS10.4 doesn't recognise Classic at all. So I can't even upgrade to the version we have in the office, because that is only an upgrade package.

This is the perfect opportunity to at long last, set up a Microshit free environment on the Mac.
No need for Word really because obviously InDesign can sort all that out.
But Excel could be a problem unless I can find some decent open source software.

Something beautiful
This way
come
Down here beside the river
Look and see the moon up there
Listen to her tears
and say
I will be here tomorrow

And over here
A book that someone dropped
with missing pages
that's where the real story is
but you want find it by looking
better sit and be
wait here with me

And we can make something beautiful together
from these broken hearts
and bits of string

How come I have only just discovered this incredible singer???

Set up the new imac this evening and went first of, for a change, to the Theatre to get the official line on the 'new' Marc Almond album. It's still due out in May, bu the still struggles and the DVD has been postponed for 'legal reasons'.
But at the Theatre I picked up a link to the 'official' myspace site.

though I still think it is a shit place for respected and established artists, there is nowhere better for downloads.
Marc's lead song there is called "Weakness for Roses' and is absolutely beautiful.
Turns out to be a cover version of a song written in 2001 by someone called "Baby Dee".
Baby dee recently appeared on satge in barcelona with Marc, and Martin Watkins on piano.

Come on guys, let the man play at home!!
For whatever reason, he can't get insurance to play live in the UK since he sustained 'disabling head injuries'.
Such bollocks.

Minutes later, I'm listening to heartbreaking songs from:

Performance artist, songwriter, classically trained harpist, circus sideshow veteran, and transgender street legend Baby Dee was born in 1953 in Cleveland, Ohio.
She spent ten years as music director and organist for a Catholic church in the Bronx before joining the circus as the bilateral hermaphrodite at Coney Island. This landed her a gig as the bandleader for performance art group the Bindlestiff Family Circus and a tour with the Kamikaze Freak Show in Europe. After moving back to New York City, she became a fixture in lower Manhattan with a street act on a high-rise tricycle with a concert harp. She recorded her first record, Little Window, on the Durtro label in 2000, a four-track EP in 2001, and her second full-length, the double-disc Love's Small Song, in 2002.

Photo by PinkNOise

Photo by Jon Scott

Quite incredible.
Fans of Scott Walker and Marc Almond will enjoy the tender pain of this unique artist. Indeed they do!

Despite my reservations, I'm rather pleased with these.
A couple of pictures of the poster sites I installed earlier int he week at the QEII Cruise Terminal in Southampton.

This one from the entrance to the departure lounge, with embarkation away to the left:

This one from the stairs, looking across the departure lounge:

twenty eight A2 running sites along the embarkation corridor:

And some chairs:

A good session this evening, ably lead by DT; the second in our new series on prayer.
Very well-timed. Like so many people, prayer is something I don't do well, or often enough. The example set by Christ in John 17 is a wonderful model, but a very hard act to follow.
Unfortunately, but true to the form of our group, there were only four of us present. Good to be back at JS house though, and I'm glad to have her back with us after an abscence of two years.
She announced tonight that she and her husband are moving to Botley at Easter. Rather a belated move, but I'm really glad things are coming together for them at long last.
The Churchwarden there at All Saints also sits on the Botley Parish Council and has been actively involved in the MTP Project. Turns out that she has already introdcued herself to the Seaman's. They will fit there beautifully.

Just started making a list of ideas for things I might like to do if and when I take up my post.
Then I thougth I'd post the same here.

• Publish a Statement in the Church Newsletter on my election
• Find someone to re-do the Church website and enable a CMS that I can take charge of
• Set up a Wardens 'blog' on the site - and some kind of surgery?
• Publish an annual review of intentions, achievements etc
• Establish regular off-the-record informal meetings with Mr Vicar to monitor his health, wellbeing and general state of churchmanship
• Re-inforce the Fabric Committee and move The Building project forward
• Study and learn more theology
• Take a day each month to be At The Church, caretaking etc…

It doesn't hurt to start with the best of intentions.

After the cell leaders meeting this evening, which poignantly reminded me how inadequately I fill this role, Mr Vicar approached me to consider becoming a licensed Chalice Bearer.
I'm flattered, and a little stunned.
I know its not a major role or anything, but it will mean another step along the road.

I'm sure its come about since our chat about my standing for churchwarden, and how I expressed some hesitation about the pastoral elements of this role. In typical fashion, our incumbent has found a role for me that represents a simple step on the ladder to becoming a more senior lay officer, perceived by newcomers to the church as a person of dignity and reverence.
Scary stuff, but one that really moves me and has got deep inside.
I'm looking forward to the role with both relish and reservation.
I feel dreadfully unworthy too, which is no bad thing.
During the first period of Lent, I have been trying to focus a little more on my prayer time and get things into more focus before takign on a more publically 'formal' role.

I expect everyone feels this, but it's bizarre that such a position should have come to little old me. I just do what I do.
As Beeblebrox puts it so eloquently "I'm just this guy, y'know?"

it is now, perhaps more than ever that I need to start fulfilling the role I;m about to take on. Grow up a bit, is the term I think.

Interesting time, that this should, in the Lord's own way, coincide precisely with this new position of responsibility and maturity that I am facing in the office. I'm not dealing with that too well either, because the authority bestowed upon me is not, so far at least, being recoginised by those who chose that it should be so! D is impossible to manage, and seems to have no respect for anything you ask him to do.
I always knew it would be thus, but that doesn't make it easier.
One of the difficulties our company faces is the identification, declaration and acknowledgement of who actually is 'in charge'.

There are two directors, and the one in charge doesn't realise he is or act accordingly, and the one who isn't in charge thinks he is.
Should they consider swapping roles?
I think not, both just need time to adjust.
"Shaper" versus "Completer/Finisher"

Two days with IW 'installing the media sites' (putting up poster frames!) at the QEII Cruise terminal has been hard work but very inspiring. We now have the first dozen six-sheets up in the departure lounge (sorry, 'embarkation suite'!!), 48 A2 sites along the embarkation corridor and eight of the planned sixteen four sheets in the Meeting Hall and Baggage Handling. The whole project is starting to come together, because D and MP have now got a whole series of quotes out with interested parties.
They are talking about ridiculous sums of money for poster campaigns, and despite my enthusiasm for the Project, I'm still for from comfortable with how I feel towards the whole Sales of Advertising point of view.
For instance, while I struggle to pay off the £2.5K on my Barclaycard and determine to close my account with the company, should I really be offering the same company extortionate rates to advertise in the Cruise Terminals? They are being quoted £7,500 for a three week campaign! At the same time, both Citroen and Peugeot are asking for a price to book ALL the sites for an eight-week campaign (that's 25 sixsheets) and being quoted around £40,000.

The more I contemplate these figures and the tiny overheads we have, and insignificant set up costs etc, the more I think the whole situation is morally wrong and that I should leave it to the others.
I wrestle with the dilemma constantly.
We have a great idea and a fantastic opportunity to launch the business into a whole new world. But is it where i want to go?
Do I compromise my artistic and ethical principles in order to reap huge revenue from high-profile media campaigns. I think to a large extent it depends what we have to do to get there.
We have talked in meetings about the content of media packs ( I can't have anything that isn't honest), but the amount of trips to London they are having to make at the beck and call of media buying agencies is just embarassing and, I would have thought, humiliating?

It's ironic that I feel this dilemma replicating that experienced by John Foxx after the success of the Systems of Romance album, when he decided to quit Ultravox on the threshold of their breakthrough. Everything was in place for the band to take off, all the groundwork was there and the pedigree established, and of course within 18 months Vienna had gone through the roof and the band were a household name. Foxx meanwhile had retreated underground and produced the cult album "Metamatic". Twenty five years on of course and the brighter light has long since burned itself out, while the slow-burning candle gets stronger and more prolific than ever.

What to do, what to do.
I have to do what is best for the family i think, in the longer term. And right now that means taking the money, getting out of debt and starting ot bring home a better salary so that we can start to enjoy the next five years.
If I can do this by spending less time at the office for more money, then that has to be a Good Thing.
I'm uncomfortable with it, but I enjoy every day of my job so much and the feeling of recognition for our achievements is very satisfying.

I feel hypocritical. I'm going round in circles.
Which is precisely why I don't think too long on this.

Maybe it was a good idea to go out with Matt this evening to watch his son's band, Next in Line, play a gig at Unit 22. Sadly, it was the night their singer finally quit the band, by texting them half an hour before they went on stage and he still hadn't showed up! I was impressed with most of their Green Day-like sound, but they need to believe in themselves more. The three core members are, again like 1978 Ultravox, much better than they think they are. Musically very tight and more than competent with their own tunes among some more popular covers (Hendrix, Electric Six, Green Day). All they need to do is to find a new singer.
"Hey Rusty, whose that bloke you know? He'd be good. What's his name, Midge something? Isn't he looking for a new band…?"

For the second time this year we ventured into the City this afternoon with the kids. Though we did spend most of the time in the parks again, we also toured the shops in Above Bar - mainly because we didn't want to buy anyhting.
It's quite a walk from the Central Library, but the kids seemed to enjoy the change, and it was very interesting for us to see them in such an unfamiliar environment. All but Alice, who has just confessed before bedtime that she hated being among so many people.
I can understand that - I think working in town and wandering the treets with no pressure from the office a couple of times a week has subtley changed my attitude to it.
Shopping in Southampton would still be an absolute nightmare with a young family, which is why we never do it. eastleigh has everything we need away from the local shop that Tx goes to in the week, and a fortnightly visit to Tesco or Sainsbury's does the rest. You can't park anywhere, there are too many poeple crowding everywhere and the shops are mostly the same and full of shit. How on earth 'we' claim to be in the Top Ten best towns in the UK for shopping is beyond me.
It's because we have a family. Apparently couples with young kids aren't called 'shoppers'? That's why you can't get a pushchair into any of the lifts at WestQuay.
For Stan it was an eyeopener - we think its probably his first time in.
Like most experiences for thim though, like me, its pretty much water off a duck's back.
Stoic, I think is the word.

Tonight, I am listening to:-
Tom Waits - SWORDFISHTROMBONES
and
Harold Budd - PERHAPS

The latter is a new 'live' album available for download only (what??? why???) from Samadhisound - David Sylvian's label. I paid for it(shock horror!) with the singular intention of sending it on as a gift to Ris, making up for the two albums he has 'sent copies of' to me over the last six months.
It is typically beautiful, but not particularly inspiring.
One of his more 'familiar' pieces I think.

The former of course is just plain barking mad! It's good to be rediscovering the inspirational genius of effective and original songwriting.

You know there ain't no Devil
It's just God when he's drunk

Notification yesterday that Flo has got her place at our first choice Secondary school in September.
She's the only one in her Year 6 going ot this school, but seems OK with it. A couple of girls from her Guides pack will also be starting.

Meanwhile Girl 5 is responding well to the Sleep management programme.
Last night, she slept from 8pm till 4am so I didn't have the inbetween wake up to do. No sign yet either of her midnight wakign tonight, so we are getting somewhere.

The 2--7 music wave is building up at last. It's been a slow start this year.
Today I have downloaded the new
Harold Budd album "Perhaps"
from samadisound. Beautiful as ever, but doesn't strike me as desperately innovative this time. It's Harold Budd being Harold Budd, and no-one does that gentle treated piano thing better.
I went out lunchtime yesterday and purchased
Grinderman
the new 'hairy scary' album from Nick Cave.
Absolutely superb, even from the point of view of someone who prefers Cave's ballards and moody (Boatman's Call etc) albums. Hard, fast, and in yer face!
ELO re-mastered "Out of the Blue
One of those great-moments-in-world-history kind of albums. It's just impossible NOT to have this and say you're "into music"
Ditto of course (and this is outrageous)
The Beatles fortieth anniversary edition of "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band"
Apparently, this has lost some of its charm since it was reprodcued in stereo. Hard to concieve that it's lost anything! How good must it be in mono???
What else? Record library acquisitions include
Ian Dury"Mr Love Pants"
if he ever did an album to rival New Boots and Pantiesthen this has to be it. I love his wordplay, and he excels in his genius on tracks like Itinerant Child and Mash It Up Harry but never has anyone recorded anything to match the sublime ode to the the wonderful Geraldine

I'm in love with the person at the sandwich centre
If she didn't exist, I'd have to invent her…
In beauty's eyes beholden my enamorata
As she works her magic on a dried tomater

G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-Gereraldine
That's the nicest badge I've ever seen

Isn't it though? You just know the despair and complex feelings the singer is trying ot express. Genius.

And the two I haven't played yet
Dead can DanceWave
and, from 2006
Nouvelle VagueBande à Part
whcih includes covers of 'Bela Lugosi's Dead', 'Ever fallen In Love' and 'Dancing With Myself'
if it's half as good as their first album, I'm in for a treat

Couple more pics of the family from the recent Forest Walk

Not a bad-looking bunch really...

I really get wound up by this kind of ignorance.

Outside a fabric shop in town, they have half a dozen wire bins with "things" in - dishcloths, tea towels etc. Whatever is on "special offer" I suppose.
Each bin is labelled with a nasty hand-written notice on white A4 paper with a black marker pen (usually running out - you now the story).
One bill is labelled:

Cusions

and the price is written as £1 but instead of a pound sign, they have used a figure 3 written backwards.

What pissed me off is that every 'cusion' in the bin was wrapped in plastic, on which was printed, by the manufacturer, a description of the product, spelled correctly in big black letters!!

I can only assume the person writing the notice is unable to read the description of the product.

And anyway, cushions for only £1 each?? Hello?
That's 'Quality and value' for youD

Does no-one think how crap they might be???

This Sunday it seems has, in one way or another, revolved almost totally around food.

Woke up this mornin' da-diddy-da-dum!!
Porridge, as we forgot yesterday and had promised. very yummy of course, especially on such a wet cold morning.
That would be around nine.
Then the Church meal, which occupies about 4 hours. Got home after the washing and locking up just after half past two.
En route for home, round to the Vicarage to deliver the last half dozen rock cakes. Mrs Vicar was taken ill this morning, so he couldn't stay for the meal after the service.
Within an hour I walked round to MS, with LC and Stan, to deliver him a copy of each of the publications that use his excellent photography and present a cheque for the same. We had cake.

Then before you know it was teatime.
Goes like that sometimes.

Still raining.
Hope the Tooth Fairy makes it tonnight through the storm - Stan's triumphantly lost his third tooth.
No tears this time, just a broad, cheeky smile when he wiggled it out in his bedroom an hour ago.

This is the second night of our pro-active campaign to restore a full night's sleep for Tx. Nora has slept through only three times so far, which is normal of course but it's easy to forget how draining this becomes after a while.
It affects me very little because I sleep through everything, but Tx is getting those familar synptoms that lack of a full night's sleep eventually bring. At six months, N is showing the signs now of waking habitually rather than out of any great neccessity, several times a night, so the time is now right to deal with it.
Tx has been experimenting with rubbing and holding different parts of her body (circular rubbing of the tummy worked on LC, while St preferred his chest to be rubbed). Seems Nora settles quite quickly if you hold her hand, which worked well last nght on the first two occasions of her waking - about 10.30 and again at midnight.
I stayed up for both of these (and I am now) and she fell asleep again without feeding. As I said, it's not something she needs now.
But at 3am she woke and cried and would not settle for an hour and a half. We tried all the tricks, and that was the hard one. nothing worked, but tshe she did eventually exhaust her screams and slept for an hour.
Tx then fed her at half past five and put her back into her cot at six, where she slept till seven.

Tonight so far is already 'better'. Trx fed her, as usual, and then wrapped her into bed just before eight. She didn't wake till 11, and I heard her first stirring from downstairs. Sat with her only ten minutes, just holding her hand,and she quickly snuffled off again. Tx was awake, but at this stage that isn't the point. Within two or three days of this, Nora will not wake at least this first time, and Tx will not be woken herself until after midnight.
It's not just the broken nights that wear her down, its the backache, lifting baby in and out of cot. That eases quickly we know, and its a good monitor of where we are at.
Six month Syndrome, we call it. Tx body has a spurt towards some kind of rehab, which is usually exemplified by backache. This in turn we deal with by this action of tackling the infant's sleep pattern.
Limiting the daytime naps now too works quite effectively.
We have managed to shift her two hour daytime sleep to the period before lunch and then she will be awake until bed time.

I'm expecting her to wake again in a few minutes.
I'll sit with her again and then go to bed myself. I've not missed either the beautiful simplicity of a cuddly wife when I slip in beside her.
Such times come and go, sometimes far away. But then the circle turns and these moments start to come back round again.

The cakes are all done and very very scrummy - I have spent the last hour and a half enjoying "The Two Towers" on DVD.

What an awesome film. I have always rated it as that, but now, halfway throught he book again, it is even better. I read to the end of Book III alst night, midway through The Two Towers, and now having seen the film of the same I can completely understand why certain edits were made and some story lines slightly shifted.
There are, so far, two fundamental differences.
In the book, Merry and Pippin's meeting with Gandalf the White in Fangorn is not described. Instead, they are taken to Isengard by Treebeard, where they witness the storming of Orthanc by the Ents.
In the film version, Treebeard suggests that "The White Wizard will know what to do" and he takes the hobbits to Gandalf himself.
Second main diversion is at Edoras, in Rohan. Instead of riding out with a company of men to Helm's Deep, leaving Eowyn as guardian of the City as in Tolkein's version, the film instead has the King ordering that the city be deserted, and all the people flee to the fortress leaving the city empty.
That's the first disc anyway. Gollum is absolute genius. Peter Jackson's direction, weaving the two journeys together and interchanging from one to the other is really effective.
I never noticed before how close the dialogue is to the book either.
Treebeard comes across in the film a little whimsical and is somehow more 'fantastical' than even the Orcs and Elves, themselves of course entirely made up. The tree herder is somehow more believable in the book - more is made of the significance of the Entmoot, a quite brilliant literary device enabling Tolkien to expose the weakness in Saruman's complex psychology

Poor old Skuff, or "scabby cat" as my 18yr old moggy is affectionately known. Three times this week the b*stard has pooped and/or peed up here in the loft room - Thursday night inside LC's Barbie House!!
It's a bit cold, and a bit rainy so I suppose there is an excuse for not going outside, but all of a sudden what has become the problem with the TWO litter trays we keep in the house?
Apparently these aren't worthy anymore, so we have to put up with little presents every so often.
Maybe it's an age thing - he is prone to stress thouogh, so I wonder if that has something to do with it/

Second afternoon sesion in the church garden (between the rain showers!) raking and bagging up all the leaves and twigs that have been thick on the ground all winter and now look distinctly shabby.
Caretaker is struggling to keep on top of it, so Tx has decided to extend her responsibility for the rosebeds ointo the wider garden and help him out. The church grounds run alongside a main road, on the corner with a quiet residential road, directly opposite the school. So we, and hundreds of other people passing through the community, see it every day and it has been quite a depressing site for ages.
I'm convinced that the sate of the grounds has something to do with the small but noticeable increase in the number of car break-ins in the car-park. Three this year, and the last one just this morning.
I think the woman involved must be 'connected' somehow, because when I went over to enquire what was going on, a police SOCO introduced himself while busy fingerprinting the car?
I had no idea they still bothered with this?
And he doesn't seem to have lectured her on the "leaving-a-handbag-on-the-back-seat" scenario either, which is more often the case this days.
We have notices up now in the office windows, and have discussed CCTV but that is prohibitively expensive.
I do think though that with better maintained grounds and a more obvious sense of 'life' around the place (especially at weekends) things will hopefully not get any worse.

The grounds do look a lot better now. One more session should clear the leaves, and then I can attack the moss and get some new grass seed down.
Took St and LC with me to dump the leaves at the tip, and while Tx was clearing up ready for home, the other Church Warden PM came past on her way to our house. She only returned from a six week holiday to new Zealand yesterday morning, so it was great to catch up and hear all her exciting news.
"Best holiday of my life" etc etc…
One of those women who is seriously popular in the community, everyone's mum and grandma to hundreds of children. Worthy of some kind of local honour I think. Modest too, and just a genuinely lovely person. Only been warden for a year,a nd during their conversation she referred to her colleagues decision to move away after Easter.
"I'll have to come and have a chat with your husband!" she joked.
"No need..."
PM is the last of the three people who need to know, and she was very supportive and excited at the prospect of working with me next year.
On tuesday night, I had an hour long conversation with the vicar who was similarly positive, so now it's just a matter of making a statement of my intention to stand at the right time. Nominations open in three weeks time I think.
Since the holiday in Wales last year I have seen the Vicar in a new light, and both our families all get on really well. He did suggest, quite rightly of course, that my standing for Warden is actually nothing to do with him, but he was glad I asked for his opinion and was delighted that he could honestly say it was a 'splendid' idea.
And so it is. A strange feeling, to be so called. With this and the emerging role at metamatic, things are really moving on.
As mr Vicar hinted, people around here have a high opinion of us, and I am more respected than I probably know. Scary thought.

Perhaps that's why I'm writing this inbetween baking batcheds of rock cakes!! Aaaages ago, I asked Mum for my grandma's recipe for these easy-peasy things, and tried it out with St and Ali last weekend with good results. So now I'm making about 50 to serve as dessert after the spag bol I am cooking for Church Family Meal tomorrow. Put a Lemming Meringue Pie together this morning with Flo for those, like Tx, who 'can't be doing with' dried fruit of any kind.
I think I'll probably do one more of these in the autumn.
Cut down from three or four a year to just the two - it's high time someone else had a chance to get into the kitchen.