The Band Gazebo

Adventures in cooking continue… Abigail made more plum jam at the weekend, this time using a sugar thermometer. We thought it might be too runny but we trusted the equipment and lo and behold, perfectly set jam! That also tastes amazing. And passed the Mammy/Nanny test so yay! She also decided to make lemon drizzle cake on a rainy Monday and oh my lord it was the nicest thing I’ve eaten in ages. Anyone who tried it said the same. She was delighted.

She also had fun with Grandad and went out with him to buy an apple tree for the back garden. (Their back garden, as in my home house back garden, not the house I live in currently). Which was duly planted and then Dad got an idea. Why not pull down the rotten trees on the property line between our house and my uncle’s next door (they’ve been in flitters since an unfortunate bonfire incident about twelve years ago and oh boy is that a whole ‘nother journal entry) and put apple trees in their place? Long story short, five more apple trees are being delivered tomorrow. Abigail is delighted. Mam thinks we have all lost our minds. Considering Abigail spent a fair bit of today driving Dad’s ride on lawnmower, I’m not sure she’s wrong, but at least she’s happy!

And in fandom news, my copy of “What’s Next” The West Wing book written by Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack arrived on Tuesday. It is almost 600 pages of behind the scenes anecdotes (seriously, it’s huge!) and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I’m enjoying it so much that I feel a rewatch coming on. Himself has never seen an episode - I know! - and I’m almost nervous to show it to him because if he doesn’t like it, I will simply have to divorce him. We shall see.

Well, our adventure in jam making was a bit of a mixed bag. It would appear that in our attempts to make sure that the jam was properly set, we ended up over setting it, because the texture is definitely thicker than it should be. (I am choosing to push the narrative that too set is better than the alternative of the jam oozing everywhere.) However, the taste is yummy. Abigail baked scones today and then we went over to my parents' house, where scones with plum jam on top were duly devoured and fulsome praise heaped upon her, so happy daughter. We have agreed that next time when we make jam, we just won't do it for as long. Or buy a sugar thermometer to take out the guess work.

In other news, we sat down to look at the uneven bars final today, because that's Abigail's favourite event. We were delighted for Suni getting her bronze - I loved her reaction! Kaylia Neymour soundly deserved the gold, but I was heartbroken for Becky Downie. Falling on your own element should be an automatic do-over.

Then this evening we watched Daniel Whiffen swim to a bronze medal in the 1500m - it was very interesting, watching the RTE commentary because they were all gutted that he didn't win. Clearly a case of heightened expectations because he'd won the gold in the 800 earlier in the week and as one of the pundits said, if the medals had come the other way around, everyone would be jumping up and down. But as someone on Twitter pointed out, in the last sixty odd years, Ireland has won 6 medals. (I think they're discounting Michelle Smith?) This week alone we've won 7 and it's out most successful Olympics ever.