The wool is from Rico Designs and can be bought from The Sheep Shop. One ball of wool does one scarf and I used size 31/2 needles and 12 stitches which gave me a scarf about 15cm wide and a meter or so long – long enough to wrap around your neck!

To cast on you need to use the two needle method and as there isn’t a huge amount of space between each pompom this can be a little tricky but it’s worth keeping at it. You knit in plain knit in between the pompoms so start by casting on one stitch then 5 sets of 2 stitches (in between each pompom) then end with a single stitch.

When you’re knitting with this will you’ll find that when you are ready to move onto the next set of two stitches the pompon will fall into place so it’s a really simple scarf to make and the texture is gorgeous and just a bit different.

The Magic Spiral is a small gadget approximately 4 inches long with a loop in one end (for your finger) and a spiral core at the other (for going into the fruit or veg). The idea is that you put the spiral into some fruit or veg and wind the gadget round so it skims the fruit or veg and leaves you with a spiral for decorating you food.

It’s quite  a cool wee gadget though you do have to be careful of your finger and for this reason I don’t think I’d let a child use it but it does give you consistent spirals that look great.

Unfortunately I have no fresh fruit or veg in the house right now so can’t sho you a pic but here’s one of the Magic Spiral and I’ll add some more later.

I love that it’s ready in the mornin with no effort and nothing beats waking up on a rubbish Autumn/Winter weekend morning, running down to the kitchen, grabbng a bowl of porridge the heading on back up to bed with a book. Bliss.

Ingredients

1 Cup Rolled Oats (I use a teacup and it makes enough for 2 good portions or 4 smallish ones)
1 Cup Milk
1 Cup Water
Apple (any apple you have but I normally use a cooking one)
Cinnamon (Nutmeg works well too)

What you need to do

• Put the oats, milk and water into the slow cooker a few hours before you plan to switch it on. I do this as it lets the flavours really soak in and also it lets me stir it once the oats have soaked up some of the milk and are a bit stodgier – I find if you don’t it can make for a little lumpy porridge).
• Grate in the apple and 1/4 teaspoon or so of cinnamon or nutmeg – how much you use depends on how strong you like the flavour.
• Just before bed (around 11pm for me, getting up at 7.30), switch the slow cooker on at the lowest setting and it’ll be ready and waiting for you in the morning.

The Fiance likes to stir in a few raisins for extra taste and energy but I prefer the sweet taste of honey or maple syrup!

Ingredients:

1kg Plums (just ripe and a few reasonably unripe)
1kg Jam Sugar
250ml Water
Good slug of rum

Makes approx 4 x medium jam jars

What you do:

• Wash, halve and stone the plums and add to a big pot
• Tip in the water and cook for 10mins or so to soften the fruit
• Tip in the sugar and bring to the boil then keep on a rolling boil for 30-40 mins (until it hits the setting point) I like to cook for a few minutes longer after it’s at setting point as you are introducing more liquid when you add the rum
• Take the jam off the heat and add in your slug of rum and stir then add into steralised jam jars, add wax discs and sea.

Finding the setting point

To find the setting point put a plate in your freezer at the beginning of the jam making process then when you think the jam is ready putt out the plate and put a drop of jam onto the cold surface. Leave for a minute then push your finger through it and if it has formed a skin then it will set.

It’s important you then lick your finder to taste and you might want to test several times….purely to test the set you understand

My ingredients below are all guesses in terms of quantity but just trust your own instinct!

Ingredients:

Plums
Port
Jam sugar (because i thought it would make a more syrupy sauce)
Spices of your own choosing (I used a pre-made mulled wine spice)

What you do:

• Halve and stone the plums and put them in a pan (I had about 500g)
• Splash over some port (I put in one large shot)
• Tip in the spices if you’re using them and the sugar (I used about 4 tablespoons of sugar)
• Heat gently without stirring to keep the fruit whole (shaking the pan while it’s heating should be enough to stop it sticking) and once the sugar has melted, the fruit is a little softer and the sauce is a decent thickness take it off the heat and spoon into plastic containers for freezing.

These stewed plums are fantastic with ice-cream, custard or for breakfast with granola and yogurt.

I ended up with a massive box full and still another few boxes worth still on the tree!

I’ve been going through a jam making stage so the first things I wanted to make was plum and rum jam. After taking the 1000g of plums from the harvest I was more than a little shocked to see that there was still about 80% of the box left full leaving me with a little dilemma of what to do with them all (and what to do with the ones still on the tree).

After a day of mulling it over I decided I’d make plum puddings (one for now and one for the freezer), stewed plums with port and mulled wine spices for over ice cream (see image below) and finally I decided to freeze a load (halved and stoned) for use over winter.

I’d already decided I wanted striped chocolates so first off I melted the white and carefully spooned it into each mould to fill up about 1/3. Once the chocolate was in I gave it a slight nudge to even out the chocolate then stuck it in the fridge to set.

After 30 mins or so (long enough to watch Eastenders!) I repeated the process with the milk and then the plain chocolate so they went from light to dark.

I was quite impressed with the results though I think I need to practice my steady hand to try and stop the odd bit of escapee chocolate (the Fiance says it adds to the charm…bless!) but overall it’s not bad for 10 minutes work!

I’ve made alcohol flavoured ganache ones and my latest is to just melt lots of nice things together and shove them into a chocolate mould. Since I’ve been doing the latter I have started to experiment with how they look more than how they taste – I figure I can work on taste and look independently then bring them together for one mega, unbeatable chocolate at a later date! One thing at a time my dear, one thing at a time!

So anyway, yesterday a friend bought me round some new chocolate moulds. They were bought from the pound shop so are amazing value and also they are a much more manageable sized than the ones I’d being using previously form Lakeland. I mean, I like my chocolate same as the next girl and I’ll still eat the same quantity but I like to look dainty while I fill my face! The other thing I like about these moulds is that they have cute mouldings so will give me chocolates with tiny little love hearts in the top or deep perfect swirls.

Tonight I’m off home via Tesco to pick up lots of contrasting coloured chocolate to try and make a perfect stripey chocolate.

I can’t wait to try them out!

In this last book Lisbeth is out once again to prove her innocence with the help of Mikael Blomkist and his team of reporters while Millennium almost folds under the strain. She wakes up in a hospital bed with her attacker two rooms away and remains under police guard in hospital throughout the majority of the story is conducted (on her part) from the hospital bed while everyone else runs around helping her prove her innocence (in spite of her desire to not let anyone help).

Lisbeth Salander is a perfect heroine for a self-confessing geek. I love that she can pretty much get to anything and any information she wants with a trusty computer and that she’s a hacker with conscience. You find yourself really rooting for her and sometimes wanting to give her a darn big shake to make her talk and save herself (though knowing she’d kick your ass in return!)

I think it’s a crying shame that Steig Larsson never got to see how popular his books were to become and even more of a shame that he’s not here to write any more for his fans!

If you can bear with the first book until it gets amazing (about 1/2 way through) then you will not regret it.

I’d been thinking of reading it for a while but was concerned it might be a soppy one (and not my scene) but one day decided to bite the bullet and read it. I have to say my fears were unfounded. It’s not some soppy love story but rather a story of a family fighting to survive in the South Dakota Badlands and the tale of how they ended up there and how Rachael Dupree hoped to get her family out of there, somewhere with running water and food!

The story is also one of betrayal as Rachael discovers her Husband has secrets that he’s not shared with her and that others already know.

While not my favourite book this year, The Personal History of Rachael Dupree is definitely one worth picking up and don’t be put off by the reviews claiming it’s a Cathering Cookson…if it was there’s no way it would have made it onto this blog!