I can always tell when Akra is in the office rather than working from home – I have to come down from the caffeine high…

I’ve had a breadmaker since Christmas now, and I can honestly say that it’s still the best kitchen gadget we own. It hasn’t been shoved into the back of a cupboard as predicted – it’s getting daily use.

It’s just great to eat bread for the enjoyment of it, rather than just have it as carbohydrate “filler” with no flavour and the texture of cardboard.

Anyway, we’ve had it long enough that I’ve started to have the courage to experiment, so I thought I’d share a pretty simple bread recipe.

The spelt flour is just enough that it adds a bit of flavour without it being so much that the kids notice and reject it with the cry of “YUCK! I HATE brown bread, mummy!” – sort of a best of both for the bread machine world. Best of all, it’s cheap but tastes like a luxury. Enjoy!

Everyday Bread

Ingredients

1tsp dried fast-action yeast (check it says suitable for breadmakers)
100g spelt flour
400g strong white bread flour
1¼tsp salt
350ml water

Method

1. Chuck all the stuff in your breadmaker (check your manual for the order)

2. Cook on BASIC WHITE if you want it nice and fluffy for sandwiches and don’t mind a bit of effort slicing it. Alternatively, use RAPID WHITE for a denser loaf that’s good as toast or if you like your slices even. Adjust size and crust settings as per your bread machine manual.

3. That’s it – all you have to do is wait then eat!

Following on from my earlier post about a professional exclusively using a point and shoot camera, I’ve come across a great article called “Should You Buy a DSLR or a Point and Shoot Digital Camera?” which has a very comprehensive list of the pros and cons of both.

It’s confirmed for me that I really don’t want to be messing around with different lenses or to have a large bulky camera to lug around with me. However, I’d still love the versatility and image quality that comes with owning a DSLR. I’m sure I can’t be the only one in that category; it’ll certainly be interesting to see the development of the creative compact market over the next few years.

Yesterday, as part of the birthday celebrations, we took the boys up to the Severn Valley Railway for their Thomas the Tank Engine event: “Day Out With Thomas”. The anticipation of the trip has been building up for weeks, but I have to say that the visit didn’t disappoint in the slightest.

First off at Kidderminster, we were treated to a short but entertaining show with cheeky Thomas himself (the attention to detail was great – even the eyes moved!), his driver (whose name is Jason, apparently), the Fat Controller, several troublesome trucks and Diesel. This was obviously very popular, being the main attraction, and was packed very early on making it difficult for littlies to see, but they were repeated frequently throughout the day, so you could always hang about for the next one.

The trains ran between Kidderminster and Bridgenorth with several stops along the way, with different things to see at each station. You could take rides on Daisy the Diesel Railcar, visit several model railway exhibitions, watch a Punch and Judy show, buy oodles of Thomas merchandise, but by far the best in Akra Jr’s and Li’l Bhaji’s eyes was the large Thomas the Tank Engine bouncy castle at the end of the line. The adults in our party favoured the GORGEOUS cup of tea at Bridgenorth. The sausage, egg and chips looked very tasty too – for once I really regretted being organised bringing a packed lunch with us!

There was a slight mishap on the way back, a tiny piece of soot (an occupational hazard riding on a steam train, I’m sure) blew into Akra Jr’s eye. We tried to wash it out while in the carriage – but unsuprisingly for a five year old, he wasn’t letting us even look. Top marks to the first aid staff though, they were great, easily calmed him and even managed to get Akra Jr to use an eye bath properly and all was well after that.

A Day Out With Thomas was a very popular event and pretty crowded throughout – in several places the trains were standing room only. In retrospect we should have got there earlier (preferably at opening time), gone on the first train right up to the end of the line, then come back stopping at each station ending up at the Thomas show at the end (the last few shows of the afternoon were almost empty).

That said, it was still a fantastic day out, a must see if you have Thomas afficionados in your household, and great value for money. Highly recommended.

I’m currently cooking roast vegetables, grilled lamb chops, gravy and mint sauce for tea.

We don’t have lamb very often, so this is a treat. It’s too expensive, and it’s easy enough to go for a roast chicken or roast beef dinner instead where the leftovers come in useful later in the week.

There’s another reason we don’t have lamb often, which I’ve only just remembered.

The smell of lamb cooking makes me heave.

Oops.

It doesn’t take long reading through the reviews of a magazine like Practical Photography or browsing the finer images on Flickr’s Explore to realise that photography is an expensive photography. To get the best photographs you always need a bigger, better camera… the best lenses… the most technically advanced DSLR on the market. Or do you?

I recently stumbled on this article about the award-winning photojournalist, Alex Majoli. As a professional photographer who has shot for such prestigious publications as Newsweek, Vanity Fair and National Geographic, you’d expect him to be carrying around a fair amount of high-quality kit. Instead, rather surprisingly, his photographic equipment of choice are digital point and shoots. He doesn’t even carry around an external flash unit.

It’s a great article, accompanied by some excellent examples of his work. He describes how he gets the most out of his cameras, capitalising on their benefits (namely near silent operation, small size and weight, directional LCD viewscreens and their depth of field) while developing techniques to minimize their weaknesses (for a photojournalist, the real stumbling block is shutter lag).

Do I still want a DSLR? Hell, yes. Preferably one with a really decent macro lens attached. But it’s a timely reminder that I still have so much to learn with my current creative compact and that as always, it’s not the equipment – it’s what you do with it that counts.

Today it’s Li’l Bhaji’s turn for a birthday. He’s two – doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?! As you can tell from the photograph, he’s quite enjoying all the attention and particularly the train related presents. In fact, he’s floating on a bubble of joy, pretending to be a train driver – photo taken mid “choo choo” action.

However, he did try and sabotage the birthday pictures yesterday evening by trying to run away from Daddy when he was supposed to be coming inside for bathtime and falling face first onto the hard patio. He’s normally the weeble of the Naan family – accident prone, but bounces back up super fast (usually knocking you out in the process), so this time it was a bit of a surprise when he came back up sobbing and with blood pouring out of his mouth and nose.

Now I don’t know about other parents, but as soon as I see blood coming out of mouth, my first thought is always “OH NO, HE’S LOST A TOOTH!” He hadn’t though, he was just being melodramatic, and had bitten into his lip – it’s quite amazing how much blood can come out of a lip cut. A few minutes with his head back and a wet flannel (as you can imagine that went down well – I actually think the screams of indignation were louder than for the original injury) and all was well. He’s escaped with a swollen purple bottom lip, and a bit of scabbiness. However, the bathroom carpet and his Cuski are both in need of a little stain removal…

Still, it hasn’t spoiled his day. The highlight for him was getting a little bag of milk chocolate buttons, a balloon with a silver ribbon and a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday” from the toddler group we go to. Amazing how biscuits and chocolate can still be consumed with a sore mouth.

Meanwhile, in the rest of my life…

On Saturday, Akra Jr reached that wonderful age where he got to own his own bike and overnight learnt the bizarre grimace small children think is smiling when a camera is aimed at them. Yes, my little baby boy is now FIVE YEARS OLD! How did that happen?

With Li’l Bhaji’s second birthday due tomorrow, we decided to be cheapskates prudent moneysavers and threw them a joint birthday party at a local soft play centre. Well, okay the real reason was that I couldn’t face two parties in the space of less than a week…

It’s that idyllic hazy memory of childhood parties that catches me unawares every time. Each year, I harbour a brief dream of perfect motherhood and plan to homemake all the food, design party games and just have a big ol’ fun bash in our back garden for all their friends. Then reality sets in.

Reality reminds me that, in general, the thought of entertaining hordes of other people’s children has me reaching for the valium after about 5 minutes and clearing up the devastation of my own two children eating and playing finishes me off at the end of the day. So, this year (same as every other) I threw aside the perfect dream with only a teensy bit of lingering guilt and went for the sugar-hyped, entertainment-provided frenzy based at someone else’s premises.

I think they enjoyed it. Apparently, it’s not the done thing to actually communicate with one’s mother at the age of five (preparing me for teenagerhood, no doubt) and Li’l Bhaji is only just learning to string more than two words together at any one time, so feedback was limited. However, given that I didn’t really see either of them for most of the party as they were too busy, I’m guessing that was a good sign.

Oh, top tip for other parents of toddlers: when coming home from a party (whether their own or someone else’s), DON’T give them sole ownership of the party bag where a piece of VERY chocolatey cake is carefully wrapped up in a paper napkin. Bad things happen.

Akra’s comment? “This is why we always take YOUR car!”

Yep, after that mammoth reinstall and the preceding laptop disintegration I’m really starting to appreciate the attractions of owning an iMac. The joys of PC ownership and Microsoft have definitely worn thin the last few days, especially as (to stave off internet cravings) I occasionally made use of the family desktop for the first time (it just happens to be of Apple origin) and found it a joy to use. With Macs now able to run Windows, it even gives us gamers a reason to switch over.

Shame I can’t actually afford one right now then really.

As you might have guessed by my extended leave of absense, the backup and reinstall of this computer took slightly longer than anticipated. It probably didn’t help that I’d left reinstall right to the last minute until it was in such a state that booting up came with at least 10 error messages each time and opening a My Computer window took about 5 minutes – you can imagine the fun and frolics that added to the backup process.

Had you been near Chez Naan yesterday evening, the air was turning a definite blue colour with such choice phrases as “NO THE PATH ISN’T TOO F*CKING DEEP YOU MICROSOFT PIECE OF SHIT!” The wireless network connecting me to our backup server also decided on the spur of the moment that it was sited too far away from … well… anything really… to bother to respond. After all, rearranging hardware was just what I wanted to be doing.

Somehow, I got through the last 48 hours without taking a sledgehammer to the PC or selling the children to pay for a new Macintosh. I think I’ve reinstalled most of the stuff I need now (still need to find the Microsoft Office CDs and get OpenRPG running again). I did manage to clear the desktop of all the shortcuts that get dumped on their by installations programs – but I’m ignoring the horrors that is the start menu for the time being. That’s just too scary.

I have email, I have Oblivion and I can open a window without having to go make a cup of tea while I wait – what else does a girl need?

Oh yeah… that iMac.

Okay, so I haven’t reinstalled the laptop yet. In fact, I haven’t started the backups yet. But I have (with Akra’s help) redesigned the blog! What do you think?!

As usual, if anything is borked, please let me know by dropping me a comment or an email.

Do you think I might be procrastinating?