So, the issue of micro generation has been at the back of my mind for some time. The standard arguments about it are that if you are going to have a home generator of some description -  solar cells (ridiculously expensive at present), wind turbine or water turbine, you end up with a lot of maintenance and a payback time which is uneconomic (ie the amount of embedded energy needed to create the system will take too long to be made up by the equipment during it’s lifetime).  Dedicated enthusiasts and those who have serious amounts of money to invest can create their own personal electricity supply. Read the rest of this entry »

What to do with the vast quantities of cherries sitting around the place in vodka… well, as you’d expect, I’ve been experimenting… and perfecting the technique has involved eating rather a lot of cherries dipped in chocolate.

After experimenting with several types of chocolate, I prefer to use a 35% cocoa chocolate from a Papua New Guinea plantation (bought in Lidl) because there was no sugar on the cherries and they really need the sweetness of the chocolate to balance the flavour.

If you plan to post the cherries, it’s best to remove the stems because these will cause the chocolate to crack in transit. Otherwise, just remove the pit using a hooked bit of wire or a (new) hair pin with the plastic stripped off.

You can prepare these vodka cherry chocolates a couple of days in advance of a dinner party and serve them with coffee after the meal.

To make vodka cherry chocolates you will need:

• 80 pitted cherries which have been pickled without sugar in neat vodka
• 125 grams of good quality chocolate
• some cocktail sticks
• A metal bowl
• Grease proof paper

Float the metal bowl in a saucepan of boiling water which has been removed from the heat.

Break the chocolate into the bowl and stir until it has melted.

Add 10 cherries at a time and stir them into the melted chocolate.

Remove one cherry at a time and place on the grease proof paper to dry using the cocktail sticks.

Repeat until all of the cherries are used up. You can use a little of the left over cherry vodka to make a chocolate sauce by using it to ‘clean’ the metal bowl.

Leave the cherries in a cool place overnight to set. These will keep as the cherries are preserved by the vodka, but it’s unlikely that they will get the chance as they are rather delicious.

At 3.05 pm yesterday our radio interview was aired. It was really quite the strangest thing… hearing your own voice like that. They asked me to speak really slowly, so I’m really quite embarrassed about the way I sounded, but luckily the sound was dubbed over by a translator relatively quickly. I hope that our story was interesting for those who listened to it. The recording:

Sand znamená písek
Příběh Angličanky Nikol Robinsonové a jejího dědečka, kterým Češi za druhé světové války zachránili život. Cesky Rozhlas 2

I phoned my grandfather to let him know that it went out, starting with ‘the ballad of high noon’ in English, and ending with the Czech version of the same song. He’ll be delighted!

Speeding our way through January we’ve seen a wealth of different weather conditions over the last month. The year started with snow and ice… specifically ice which we skated on as the Jordan reservoir froze solid, providing us with a vast area to practice on in our new skates. We also tried snowboarding for the first time, there being just enough snow in the nearby mountains. All perfectly in line with our expectations of a winter season in Central Europe… however since then it’s been strange. The temperature has increased dramatically, up to 10 degrees c on Sunday evening… so the snow has all but disappeared, and the temperature at Nový Mlýn has really thawed. Can I permit myself to be happy about this?

Read the rest of this entry »

This pattern is knit in one piece, including the visor or brim. There is a flap and button on the band, which can be positioned to fit the wearer exactly.   I knitted the first version of this hat as a Christmas present for my friend Vladka.  When I finished the second version, my husband asked me to knit him one (I’m pleased because he’s never asked me to knit him something… he must really like it – and it’s a more masculine design than the baker’s boy cap).

So, tonight I will go through my instructions to double check them, then list the pattern on payloadz, etsy and ebay.

Welcome! 2008 – which began with a resounding fizzle. The sound of my melting lap top.

So… gone is so much work from 2007. At least I have a clean slate with the Novy Mlyn project plan again.  Redoing my accounts for tax return was no fun. It really isn’t the sort of job you should have to do twice.  Maybe next year I will have an accountant.

With the temperatures hovering around minus 5 degrees c (daytime), there have been all sorts of good reasons to knit rather than undertake any arduous DIY (like the paint doesn’t work at such levels of cold). Knitting by the fire has been more on the cards. I think that having spent 12 months living (as much as we can) at the house will give us a good perspective on our priorities for the reconstruction.

I am praying for inspiration, and motivation to get through the next year. It’s been a tough few months with many dissapointments… but soon it will be spring.