You Can Only Go So Far On A Sofa...

 ...Cos A Sofa's Got Small Wheels

That was the first line of a very funny Joyce Grenfell poem I remember from my youth. 

I am very fond of our big black sofa. It is an IKEA Friheten. We first saw it in store in 2017, and put it on our wishlist for retirement [having measured the space first] It fits perfectly in the corner of the lounge. We bought it sooner than we expected, early in summer 2019, when nobody dreamed what lay ahead of us. The sign said "Last chance to buy" so we did. 7 years later, IKEA still sells them.

This past week, with both daughters here, they asked if we could possibly look after the 4 children while the four adults went for a meal in Norwich. So they all came to Cornerstones for a sleepover. It all worked really well, and the sofa was most useful. The second mattress rolls out on small wheels and rises up to make the L-shape into a big double-bed sized rectangle.

After pizzas, bathtime and getting into pj's, Rosie read Cat in the Hat stories to the Littl'uns. Then it was Film Night - we sprawled about watching Toy Story #1. The children went off to the bedrooms - George and Jacob shared the double in the back bedroom, Rosie and Jess in the front in ours. Bob and I put sheets and pillows on the sofabed, and slept in the lounge. Next morning they piled back in with us. Bob went off to fix breakfast. I love the way Rosie is quietly reading her book while the other three are busy snuggling and giggling together. 

We enjoyed the traditional Sleepover Breakfast, of pancakes with assorted toppings. Their parents came and collected them mid morning and they all went off together to go swimming.
After lunch, Bob and I did the library run, then spent the afternoon 'reclaiming' our home - and putting sheets and towels through the washing machine.

The actress Beatrice Tanner [aka Mrs Patrick Campbell 1865-1940] described her marriage as "The deep, deep peace of the double bed after the hurly burly of the chaise longue" In my case, getting back into my own bedroom on Thursday night was "the deep, deep peace of the double bed, after the hurly burly of four excited children on a small-wheeled-sofa-bed"

No Reds Under The Beds Here!

When we got married, Bob's parents bought us a bed. The guy in the shop told us to turn/rotate the mattress every three months to ensure even wear. I diligently marked each corner, top and bottom. Thus in the corner under Bobs pillow, it would say Jan 1st/ Apr 1st/ July 1st/ Dec 1st depending on which season we were in. We kept the bed, but changed the mattress a few times. The bedframe had four built in underbed drawers. So useful when we lived in tiny flats.

Then Bob got sleep apnoea. We got a new bed and a new mattress. Now we had one with a definite top and bottom, so it's turned round, but not over - every six months. Last week we did the July turn. This is an IKEA Malm bed, and matches our bedroom cupboards [as does the one in the back bedroom] IKEA are about to phase out the Malm range. Look out for bargains on FB Marketplace!
A few years back, IKEA had an ad campaign for its beds "Where family starts" claiming that German researchers had discovered than 10% of European babies were conceived on IKEA beds. They had a photographic family tree including bed pictures. [The other Europeans were presumably conceived "out of bedlock"]

It is always slightly embarrassing to see how much dust collects under my bed despite my 'swiffering'. There are a few things which live there

• the extension cable for plugging in bedside light, phone charger etc
• A small zip underbed bag where I keep our summer sandals and beach shoes over the winter.
• The big pack of spare kitchen tiles, because when the boiler dies, probably soon, I will need to fill the gap. And these tiles are big and need to be stored flat
• A small box of emergency foodstuffs. A hangover from the days of my Brexit box, I check this and use/swap stuff that is going out of date every so often. Rosie recently asked me "Grandma, why do you keep snacks under the bed?" I pointed out that a can of red kidney beans doesn't really count as a midnight snack!

In the back room, the bed is a little higher, and I have two proper Malm storage drawers. One has all my craft paper and card [flat and accessible] The other holds spare bedlinens and tablecloths. The contents of both drawers are slowly being used up/donated to CS. 

There is something very satisfying about doing a thorough clean, washing the bedside rugs, putting fresh linen on the bed... 

At the moment I use the duvet cover as a loose top sheet. Even in hot weather, I like to have something over me when I sleep] My preferred heatwave pjs - an ancient "Friends" t-shirt, and M&S men's boxer shorts.[3-pack, for £10 in 2023] Confession; some of these hot mornings recently, I get to lunchtime and I'm still slumming around the house in these!

Years ago [having read the joke in one of her dad's books] my daughter asked her Sunday School teacher

"Is it true that we come from dust and go to dust?"

The somewhat surprised lady said "Well, that's what the bible tells us, dear"

My cheeky child responded "Well, there's a lot of people coming and going under my bed then

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

Sometimes my Mum would serve a can of meatballs for tea along with mashed potato. When I was first married, I cooked Mary Berry's frikadeller recipe from Home&Freezer Digest, using a mix of pork and beef. IKEA arrived in the 80s and I was hooked on their Swedish meatballs. Now they sell meatballs, chicken balls, veggie balls and plant based balls. A useful freezer standby - I posted about how to serve your 'Swedish' meatballs in a variety of different ways back in 2015
Recently I rustled up some home made meatballs - this time with a middle eastern twist, using my Ottolenghi Simple Cookbook which Julian gave me for my birthday last year.

I had some leftover lamb and I flicked through this book and found this. It was very easy and very tasty. I had enough lamb to make enough for four portions - so we ate half and put the rest away for later in the week. 

500g minced lamb
100g feta, crumbled into roughly 1cm pieces
2 tbsp picked thyme leaves
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
10g parsley leaves, finely chopped
1 slice white bread, blitzed
½ tsp ground cinnamon
Salt and black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp pomegranate molasses, plus 1 tbsp extra to serve (optional)

Heat the oven to 200C. Put all the ingredients apart from the oil and pomegranate molasses in a large bowl, add three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt and plenty of pepper, and mix with your hands to combine. Still using your hands, divide the meatball mix into 18 roughly 35g portions and form each into 4cm-wide balls. Heat the oil in a large frying pan on a medium-high flame, then fry the meatballs (cook them in batches, if need be), for five to six minutes in total, gently turning them throughout, until golden brown all over. Transfer the meatballs to an oven tray lined with baking paper, drizzle pomegranate molasses over the top, if using, and bake for five minutes, to cook through. Serve hot, with a final tablespoon of pomegranate molasses spooned on top. [I baked mine in the air fryer]

I forgot to take a picture of mine - but they did look exactly like Yotam's, and we liked the flavour. It was the end of my bottle of pomegranate molasses, I shall have to get some more at Oli's when I am next in London with Liz. It does give a lovely sweet-sharp flavour. I served the meatballs with plain boiled rice, and a quick salad made with grated carrot. 

This is such a fun children's book. We have had hot weather, cool weather, dry weather, rain, thunder and lightning in the past fortnight. But no meatballs!

How do you eat yours?

Snöskyffel and Aglet

I think these should be a pair of Scandinavian cartoon dogs - the Nordic equivalent of the Antipodean Bluey and Bingo. In fact Snöskyffel is the name of the cute red metal shoe horn from IKEA and Aglet is the correct English word for the sheath at the end of as shoelace, which stops it unravelling and makes it easier to thread through the holes.

I have been thinking about both recently, because summer approaches and I am wearing both my white plimsolls and my new trainers on warm dry days. I get frustrated if my laces come undone when I am out - finding somewhere to balance whilst I retie them is not always easy. I do not want to kneel on the path, there is never a convenient ledge or step when you want one, and I do not want to roll inelegantly into a heap on the pavement like a distressed hedgehog. I decided to try the 'no bow' system, turning the shoes into slip ons.[Ignore the fact that this video is for gents!]

But when I push my foot in, the back of the shoe rolls over. The shoehorn is brilliant at assisting my heel into place. The aglets are inside, invisible, and my feet are comfy. And my shoes have been converted into slipons. I am sure many of you knew the word aglet already - I have posted this video of the aglet song before...

I've Got Some Nice Legs!

Said Bob. It was during the great pre-retirement downsize, I realised that one thing I did need at Cornerstones was a small table in the back bedroom. I had hoped it would be a worktable for my craft activities, and a place for visitors to put their stuff. That was why Bob mentioned his nice legs [!] and that he had a piece of wood, a short length of kitchen worktop retrieved from our neighbour's skip in Dorset when they had a refit. The legs were red metal [IKEA bargain basement, £5, years ago] and had remained in his stash, stuck together with parcel tape. He promptly screwed the legs to the wood and there was my table. It has been in use ever since. But he never actually finished it properly. I put a tablecloth on it when we had overnight guests.

Here it is, this time last year, stacked with food and jars during the kitchen refit. The top is grubby, it had sharp edges and corners, and the base of every leg [hidden in this shot] is a mess of half removed brown parcel tape. More recently my worklamp has been clamped to the edge, and the table has been covered with sewing projects.

On Thursday, I had been tidying the bedroom, the tabletop was clear. Bob leapt into action, and took the table outside. He removed the legs, and while I set to work with solvent to clean off the sticky tape and goo, he rounded the edges of the top. He sanded everything and finished it off with a coat of Osmo. It looks so much better now

Clean, shiny and no sharp corners! This will count as a restoration project, another of my #word365 activities. Thank you Bob. I shall refix  my lamp and I'm 'good to go' again

The Silent Stars Go By

Often I will make a special tree decoration to mark the year - the year of lockdown, the year of the Raised Bed, etc. This has been The Year Of The Kitchen. I had a whole stack of IKEA instruction booklets - every item comes with its own A4 manual, about 8 pages long with pictures of how to assemble the flatpack furniture. I had a crazy idea about some sort of paper sculpture decoration.

Using my die cut machine, I produced lots of 3" circles, and carefully folded and glued a 'honeycomb' ball. But although it was suitably round, the honeycomb turned out very uneven and I was unhappy with it. I found a pattern for folding a 5 pointed star. This proved much better.

I found an excellent online TUTORIAL , offering both words, diagrams and a video - so you could choose which instructions suited you best. You begin with some very clever folding of a square of paper, and then make one cut, which gives you a perfect pentagon. This is then folded into a pretty star. 

Whilst watching University Challenge, I folded my stars. I've given them a thin coat of PVA solution to protect and stiffen them, and help them stay folded. I have chosen the best one to hang on the tree. On some you can read the different languages, on this one you can see screwdrivers and hammers!

I may add this line to my 'reworked carol lyrics' collection

"Westward leading, still proceeding
Folding the Kitchen Star"