The small girl smiles

One eyelid flickers
She whips a pistol from her knickers

You can read all of Roald Dahl's brilliant Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf here. It's my favourite of his Revolting Rhymes. I'm pleased to say it's still alot of kids favourite poem going by the BBC2 documentary Off by Heart which was on earlier this week as part of the BBCs poetry season. It was a delightful film following 12 smashing kids as they competed in a poetry recitation competition. Seven out of twelve chose Little Red Riding Hood as their poem of choice and it was great watching the variety of performances, most of which made me laugh out loud.

Another Roald Dahl airing was on Radio 4's Archive on 4 and is available on the listen again feature for a week. He was just as funny in real life as his writing suggests. He's my favourite kids author, I devoured his books when I was a kid and The Twits is in my top ten works of fiction.

I think there are a lot of important lessons in The Twits. If you haven't read it yet, why not? A word of caution for new readers, spaghetti will never be the same again.

Comments

claire montgomerie said…

i am with you all the way here - and you have reminded me that i forgot to watch the kids poetry thing - i shall be checking to see if it's online when i go to find the roald dahl radio programme you have recommended.

26 May 2009 at 11:23

Anonymous said…

Roald Dahl is one of my favorite authors of all time. Rawk.

26 May 2009 at 12:35

Deja deja decisions

After all my decision making in my post yesterday, and my eagerness to cast on, my brain interfered again and I spent most of the evening playing with colour combos in Excel.

It looked like this:

I stared at it for ages, showed it to my other half, stared at it again, showed it to my other half*
*repeat until bedtime.

I decided to get stuck in having whittled it down to two possible layouts. I'm still not one hundred percent sure but I'm hoping I'll have a better idea by the time I'm at the next colour change.

Food: easy five spice soda bread

In that idle time between Christmas and New Year some have dubbed Twixmas, I found myself recuperating from spending a week with my very intense mother-in-law by watching mid-morning TV.

I flicked over to Nadiya's British Food Adventure where this recipe for red split lentils and five-spice soda bread caught my eye.

I'm a big fan of curry; it's my favourite cuisine and the combo of lentil soup and soda bread ticked the right boxes. My dad is a keen breadmaker and he talked about making soda bread over Christmas which had tickled my interest. While I like the idea of making bread, I'm unlikely to have bread flour or yeast in and I find the kneading and proving off putting, but soda bread is doable.

The lentil soup was eaten before I thought of photographing it. It's similar to dhals we routinely make for dinner - so cheap and easy to do - though the garlic and butter were a treat. The bread has lasted for a few days as there are only two of us in the house. I manag…

Deja decisions

Almost two years to the day that I cast on for what has so far been my biggest FO, I'm casting on another.

When I found out my first nephew was on the way I um'd and ah'd over what to knit for him; i.e. I spent hours browsing Ravelry looking at ALL THE BABY THINGS.

I wanted to make him a blanket, something he'd hopefully use and keep for several years, maybe into adulthood. While I like knitting modular patterns, crocheting motifs and generally being a clever clogs, my brain kept on returning to a simple yet effective pattern.

#knitting pattern is Teddy blanket by Millamia A photo posted by clarestorry (@gingerknits) on Apr 20, 2014 at 9:44am PDT

I've worked with MillaMia in the past and their oh so cheerful Teddy Blanket had always attracted a lot of attention at yarn shows. It's a very easy knit though it is an exercise in stamina.

After doing more browsing (thanks again Ravelry) I decided on it but using Rico Essential Cotton, not MillaMia yarn, as although …

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