tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-101197822024-02-28T08:25:07.759+01:00Heliosphericready...set...goHelenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.comBlogger134125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-41801736388254068642011-12-22T18:25:00.000+01:002011-12-22T18:25:22.013+01:00Operation Rolling Pin - GingerbreadAnd yea verily, the gingerbread was made, and lo, Operation Rolling Pin is no more.
Lessons in cookie cutting optimisation were learnt:
I rolled the dough out a bit too thin, so my gingerbread is really more like ginger biscuits.
There were stars and trees and angels and santa shapes:
They cooked (perhaps a bit too long) and are indeed quite delicious - the perfect accompaniment to a cupHelenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-49053099632898278192011-12-20T16:52:00.000+01:002011-12-20T16:52:42.413+01:00Operation Rolling Pin - Cranberry KipferlnThis was the sight that I awoke to this morning.
After a bit of dancing around with excitement, I got down to business; Cranberry Kipferln - phase two of Operation Rolling Pin.
After my issues with the wet and sticky Linzer Sterne dough, these were a doddle. The dough comes together quickly and is rolled into a couple of long cylinders, wrapped in cling film and put in the fridge to cool for Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-41743713476684693622011-12-15T12:11:00.001+01:002011-12-15T16:46:30.608+01:00Operation Rolling Pin is GOIn an effort to induce an attack of Christmas Spirit ™ , I started Christmas baking yesterday - code name Operation Rolling Pin.
So, I grabbed the biscuit cutters, a recipe for Linzer Sterne and cranked some seasonally appropriate music and I was off and running baking.
Linzer Sterne dough is wet and a bit of a challenge to work with, but with enough flour on the pin, it rolls out eventuallyHelenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-56242558319195060952011-11-01T14:03:00.000+01:002011-11-01T14:03:29.821+01:00Poor PlanningAfter a flawless Halloween campaign which entailed dispensing chocolate bars to:
4 witches
2 vampires
1 ghost
1 generic superhero
I awake to find myself the victim of poor planning.
I should have twigged yesterday at the supermarket, where it seemed that the entire population of Mainz was shopping in preparation for the Apocalypse. I failed to take the step in logic that states: after All Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-26220210453561735312011-10-31T13:51:00.000+01:002011-10-31T13:51:51.650+01:00HalloweenDespite the fact that Halloween is not part of my cultural heritage, I thought I'd get into the spirit this year and carve a pumpkin lantern thingy. A couple of hours of scooping, scraping and cutting yielded fairly pleasing results.
Once illuminated with an old LED bike light it looks spookily festive. (I really need to work on my night photography skills.)
Fingers Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-78528189047597856502011-09-10T13:09:00.000+01:002011-09-10T13:09:33.143+01:00KindnessA little over a fortnight ago we had to make a trip to
London for the heartbreaking task of organising a funeral and attending to the
affairs of my beloved brother-in-law. As grief is not a spectator sport, I
prefer not to write about it here, but I did want to say something about
kindness.
During our two weeks in London, I was often
overwhelmed by the kindness shown to us by virtual Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-473133807860165712011-08-14T15:52:00.008+01:002011-08-14T17:59:34.564+01:00Summer travels - part I, ZürichIt has been a summer of travelling here at heliospheric HQ.
First up was a lovely week in Zürich. The toll sticker was purchased and duly stuck on the windscreen and we were off, hurtling down the autobahn to Switzerland.
I played tourist, while R caught up with colleagues at ETH and enjoyed some well-lubricated scientific discourse (which sounds dodgy now that I've written it down). Moving Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-34703804780729724472011-04-19T17:12:00.002+01:002011-04-19T17:44:22.764+01:00One a penny, two a penny...hot cross buns, a photo by heliospheric on Flickr.Hot Cross Buns!Obviously, my cross piping skills need some work, but I can attest to their utter deliciousness.It also pleases my inner pagan that they taste just as delicious sans croix. I had to eat one of each, you know, for science.I used this recipe, with some modifications:4 teaspoons of mixed spice1 cup currants & 1 cup of Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-47989276797956326962011-04-11T08:12:00.002+01:002011-04-11T08:17:04.847+01:00Almonds and modern medicineI have my lovely husband to thank for my latest malady – Tonsillitis. He generously shared it with me before racking off to Vienna for a week, leaving me at home and unable to swallow without tears.I knew he was sick when he willingly went to the doctors and camped out in the waiting room until they could fit him in. The doctor determined that his infection was bacterial in nature and he was sentHelenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-50425158720384860362011-03-21T14:38:00.003+01:002011-03-21T15:09:08.255+01:00RehabThe second knee surgery was just over 4 weeks ago and I've been busy recovering and rehabilitating.I feel as though for the last 6 weeks, since my foray into the world of knee surgery, I have been constantly in either the surgeon's waiting room or the physiotherapist's treatment room being poked, prodded, stretched, pulled, pushed, massaged and Pilates-ed. Add to that some swimming and pool work Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-71230290752991908292011-02-14T15:59:00.006+01:002011-02-14T16:24:04.895+01:00Did the earth move for you? - Valentine's DayMagnitude 4.4.Really, just a short jolt, but enough to make me get up and go outside and check things out. According to the people who know, this was the largest in a series of 4 tremors since yesterday.There was another tremor just before Christmas (magnitude 3.5) which woke me up. I initially put this one down to a large slab of snow coming off the roof.The last time I experienced an Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-84059937059142230372011-02-07T18:01:00.007+01:002011-02-07T18:25:35.373+01:00Modern or Traditional?Are you are modernist or a traditionalist when it comes to wedding anniversary gifts based on the number of years of marriage?I used to be a traditionalist and followed the formula pretty closely:Year 1 - Paper - Tickets to a classical music concert (I believe it was a Mahler symphony)Year 2 - Cotton - Table cloth and table runner Year 3 - Leather (ahem, let's not go there)That is until we got toHelenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-65358942419750746652011-01-26T13:27:00.005+01:002011-01-26T14:36:24.311+01:00Mr DeMille, I'm ready for my close upDipping into the Family 8mm Film Archive again for some swimming related hilarity to celebrate my rekindled love of swimming.By the time I came along in the early 1970s, Dad's enthusiasm for recording our lives on 8mm film had dwindled. I can hardly blame him - he now had 4 children and precious little time for such nonsense. The movie camera was retired to the back of the cupboard and life Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-20002625131422109422011-01-20T10:55:00.004+01:002011-01-20T11:49:39.652+01:00The displacement of waterIt appears I have been using cheese as a replacement for cigarettes for the last 2 years. In retrospect, not such a cunning plan.So, it is back to the pool for me. My motto for 2011 is "fight inertia" because I often find the hardest thing is to get started. This project is no exception. What I've been calling research and planning - which pool, should I buy a season pass/multi-pass/single-pass, Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-77472252956747456472011-01-10T12:42:00.004+01:002011-01-10T13:39:13.813+01:0042 linesAfter living in this fair city for over three years, it is a little embarrassing to admit that Saturday 8th January, 2011, was my first visit to the Gutenberg Museum. Visitors have such a lovely way of encouraging one to get out and about.I had visited the print workshop for a language school excursion last year and had thoroughly enjoyed inking, rolling, rubbing, type-setting and pulling levers Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-56650278539780686022011-01-05T16:37:00.007+01:002011-01-05T18:47:59.255+01:00Zombie BlogIn a reckless and ill-considered act of necromancy (and let's face it, it rarely ends well), I've decided to dust off this blog and attempt to write something this year. Zombies are so 2010, aren't they? I wonder what will replace them in the zeitgeist of internetland in 2011?Care to place a wager? I've got an each way bet on something involving Kanye West's twitter feed, a small Marmoset and a Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-15104670473916164342011-01-02T13:14:00.003+01:002011-01-02T13:36:35.478+01:00Family TreasuresI went home for 6 weeks last year. People, I can't tell you how necessary that was.Ostensibly, the trip home was so I could attend the Big Kahuna's 80th birthday, but a lovely side effect was that I found my sense of humour.Thanks to my sister's excellent organisational skills, the family 8mm movie and 35mm slide archives were digitised to mark the occasion. My Dad was a prolific, if not overly Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-86609342101398784892010-06-27T14:45:00.005+01:002010-07-22T08:43:44.191+01:00Tap, tap, tap - is this thing on?I’ve sat down to write this post many times over the past year and a half and just couldn’t seem to get my head around it. At first it was lack of internet access, and then it was my inability to make sense of the last year and especially my reaction to it.
Given that no one wants to hear me whinge, I’ll summarise the past year in the form of titles for unwritten blog posts.
If your house were Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-10420018586120109192009-01-26T09:22:00.000+01:002009-01-27T18:51:45.810+01:00our home is girt by sea*What is one to do, when one finds oneself in a foreign land on the occasion of one's National Day?One attempts to whip up a batch Lamingtons, of course.In the process, I discovered a new found admiration for old-school, no mixmaster/kitchenaid cookery. Creaming butter and sugar by hand is a bitch.How I longed for my old trusty Sunbeam Mixmaster (ca 1960). Ours was a multi-generational machine. Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-90437145232779533542009-01-06T11:44:00.002+01:002009-01-06T11:49:21.811+01:00SnowBlossoms in the snowOriginally uploaded by heliosphericIt is well below 0°C and forecast to remain that way for the next few days.The novelty of snow has definitely not worn off.Perfect weather for curling up on the couch and reading a book and drinking cups of tea.Heavenly.Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-10492458310263666802009-01-05T09:11:00.006+01:002009-01-05T10:09:45.169+01:00ResolvingNew Year Checklist:Cupboards reorganised....check.House tidy...checkNavel gazing complete...check.Right, must be time to do that resolution thingy.I was fairly specific last year with my resolutions and that worked fairly well as I had a number of specific things I wanted to achieve. I'm in a big picture frame of mind at the moment, so I've developed the following mantra:"Positive, Active, Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-57888973534147263812008-12-31T10:48:00.008+01:002008-12-31T14:43:44.621+01:00Resolution Round-UpWay back on 2 January 2008, I penned my manifesto for the year.It is now time to have a look and see how I did.Item 1: The BodyEnough with the smoking already - it will kill you. Stop it.Result: WIN - although not without some hiccups and obsessive washing-up.Exercise and fun are not mutually exclusive. Get on your bike, back in the pool, join a team. Anything. Make sure it is fun.Result: WIN. Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-61542385971341577662008-12-28T10:24:00.006+01:002008-12-28T10:41:08.274+01:00Christmas Ham-sterOn Christmas Day as we were heading out the door to visit some friends, I noticed that the neightbours had constructed a makeshift enclosure, complete with a little wooden hut - the perfect size for a hamster.My internal monologue went something like..."The kids next door must have got a hamster for Christmas, how cute."Closely followed by..."It's a bit weird that there is no top on that Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-66693205240891732632008-12-19T16:44:00.003+01:002008-12-19T17:00:44.560+01:00CertifiableI wish I could blame my protracted absence from this blog on madly studying for today's big test - Zertifikat Deutsch.Unfortunately, I can't, because I didn't.I wish I could wax lyrical about the Grammatik and how effortlessly I penned that reply to my 'friend' - full of coherent advice about what she should do with her lazy, football watching brother.Unfortunately, I can't, because I didn't.I Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10119782.post-44346715922538175782008-11-15T11:35:00.003+01:002008-11-15T12:25:20.078+01:00In da hoodI have developed a bad habit of listening in on people's conversations on public transport. While eavesdropping is not considered a polite hobby, I justify it to myself by thinking that it is good 'hörverstehen' practice.Normally, I don't understand a lot of what is said, but yesterday I had the pleasure of listening to two 14 year old boys whose mother tongue is 'Merkin.It was all 'dawg', 'Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00112402505658315085noreply@blogger.com2