Cookie O'Fail

I have been working on a particular piece of writing for a few days now.  It is a tough tale of abuse and redemption, grace and God.  A story that is all the more powerful because it is real.  It actually happened to a friend of mine.  I hope to share it with you next week.

As I have been writing, I have been thinking, I would like a cookie.  Not only do I want to eat one, but I want to make one.  Today, after honing several lines, I decided to take a break and bake.

I have wanted to try out a new recipe I have been working on for some days, a chocolate cherry salt sprinkled cookie.  Delicious I hear you think.  Yes, it is a really great dough mixture, and it tasted awesome, with exactly the right balance of sweet and sour, chewiness and crunch (I use wholemeal flour), with a great chocolate flavour from the large choco chips, the chunky cherries adding a certain chewiness and jelly fruit.

Into the oven they went, looking high and might, warrior cookies.  I had visions of serving them as a new recipe to friends at a BBQ this evening.  I then sat down to rework another line of text.

Cookies normally bake for 8mins in our aga.  8 minutes later I had burnt crunchy edges, dried out chocolate chips and cookies that turned to rock flying saucers, when they cooled.  First photo.

In went the second batch which I watched more carefully.  Instead of burning, they oozed into each other, to create two lines of grand cookie.  Cutting them with a knife, and squashing them into rough circles, when they cooled, they were chewy with a light crunch and a deep chocolately taste.  The chocolate and the cherries perfectly complimenting each other, adding depth to the flavour.

But they were far, from perfect.  In fact they weren't even perfect's 10th cousin.  They were failures.  The first batch because they burnt, as the aga had been turned up and no one told me. The second because I hadn't spaced them properly.  And, the salt, well it was just downright discusting.  I really am not getting this craze for putting salt on everything sweet at the moment.

Why may you ask have I chosen to share cookie o'fail?  Especially when anywhere on the web you can get a selection of brilliant cookie recipes with perfect photographs?

I share because it's important to realise a the perfection of the blogsphere, that sometimes, things just don't work.  Cookies burn, they turn to muss, cookers get turned up and no one tells you. Life goes wrong, but life goes on.  Instead of focusing on the fail, I think about what went wrong, and how I can fix it for next time.  I ponder what would make it better. 

DON'T FOCUS ON THE FAIL, FOCUS ON THE FORWARD!

As a food writer, I constantly strive for as close to perfection as possible with the recipes that I share with you. I want you to get the enjoyment out of creating them, as I get from the creation process - both of the recipe and the actual food.  Therefore plenty of my recipes go wrong before they go right.  In fact the recipes that I share with you are often recipes that have been worked, and reworked several times, until I am happy with them.  Content you will be too when you have a go.

Today I take a risk in sharing my cookie o'fail with you and I hope you won't judge me too harshly.

Why don't you join us in the comments or over at Lisa Jo's Five Minute Friday to talk about a risk you have taken...

Watch this space for a great recipe coming soon for choco cherry cookies - I will get it right.

Have a great weekend.

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable

Connections on the path

One of the most beautiful things about the blogging path is the ability to connect with other writers.  When I sit to write my blog posts, there is something reassuring and very special in the thought that right across the world, thousands of others are sharing their lives in the same way.  Maybe even at the same time as me. 

Writing is by its very nature a solitarity pursuit. It's reality is one that is difficult to understand if you don't write.  

Tuning into daily life as it happens around us, we writers live in the here and the still to be written. We live in a world that is nearly always on - rest is intentionally scheduled and not taken for granted.

My day is filled watching, thinking, hearing, seeing, considering, and storing away information, both consciously and unconsciously from scenes and conversations I have experienced or heard about.  And, that is before I start to write. 

Several things happened to me this morning that all been stored away for future reference -

-          Trying out a new workout from the Faster school of personal training

-          Feeling relief from foot pain from the Fasa manipulation technique

-          Listening to someone with chronic illness (who will steadily lose their mobility) talk about their life  and its lack of hope

-          Reading an article about how positive someone who works with criminals feels when they chose a crime free life

-          Walking my dog on a misty morning and continuing to work training him to SIT and STAY

Regular daily experiences.  There's nothing facinating here, but these are exactly the sort of experiences that some of my characters might have, these are things I make the choice to be switched on to feeling in their intensity by all my senses.

As a writer I choose to walk a path outside the 9-5, away from the close the door on work, far from the chatter of offices.  The world as I write exists inside my head, my characters living breathing creations my factual writing also needs to be alive inside my head so that on paper it holds a readers attention. 

Of course I need to be disciplined, I need to know that writing is a job like any other, and that it being my passion is sometimes arbitory.   This is why connecting with other writers as Jeff Goins discusses today in his series 15 Habits of Great Writers, having friends and mentors is absolutely essential to me both as a person and as a writer.  The fans he talks about are a privilege and essential as well. 

Choosing a path to follow as a writer is a personal choice, but one part of it that is without doubt non-negotiable is the essential connection to other humans - friends, family, fans and mentors.

On Friday's I love to connect with The Gypsy Mama for Five Minute Friday, where a community of writers all write for Five minutes on a prompt.  Today's was Path!

What path have you choosen to walk on?

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable

photographs by iPhone

Perspective

Perspective - Five Minute Friday

It's how I see.  It is my sight.  My line of vision.  

It's what is importnat to me in a scene.  It's that moment that is different by a hair of a second from the next.

It is my way of seeing and then presenting my world.  

My perspective is my interpretation of my vision.

My perspective, is always developing.

Recently I was asked to write about how I take my photographs, the settings I use, the equipment, etc.  The question threw me and for several days.  I wondered, how do I answer that? What is the answer?  Do I have the answer?  Is there an answer?

The answer I came up with was all to do with perspective - yours, mine, someone elses.

If I was to stand with a group of people, we all had the opportunity to take the same picture, with the same settings, the same equipment, none of us would actually take the same picture.  Or leave the process after editing with the same picture.  Every photograph would be varied, a slightly different angle, a tone highlighted, a more prominent shadow, some would be BW, some would be vibrant colour, some would capture that split second moment, that is the money shot, others would be miles out.

This is because of perspective. There may be similarities in how we see the world, but actually our perspectives are different, our sight is different, our vision, our height, what we look for, what catches our eye first in any scene.

Photography is all about perspective.  And, yes of course, we can learn about it.  We can read about it, we can be taught.  We can understand its rules and its principles, we can put them into action.  How we position the camera, how we set it up, how we edit, how we present our images all of this can be learnt.  But there will always be some who innately see things with a different perspective.  Who's interpretation is new, fresh, different.  

It is about vision.  It is instinctive. It is a way to see the world through a lense.  I am not sure that an instinctive nature can be taught.  Yes, it can be improved upon, it can be developed, but that innate ability to pick up a camera and get the shot, the money shot within a matter of moments.  I think that comes from inside us.

Don't get me wrong I am always learning, always stretching my mind, thinking about new ways to see things, questioning how I have seen before, trying new things, looking at new settings, learning and learning and learning, about the technicalities of photography - and they still baffle me at times - trying to improve my vision, working on my perspective.  But my perspective is there, developed over years of taking pictures, years of working with images, years of learning, years of trying, years of studying perspective in art, in design and I still feel I have so far to go, so much to learn. 

So much to see!

What is your perspective - how do you look at things?  Do you think something innate can be taught?

P52 - Mum

I have chosen some of my favourite pictures of mum for the P52 prompt.  The first shot is of her with her mum, the second of my Mums in which I adore the colour and vibrancy which jumps out of the shot and reflects her, and the third is of my mum on the Irish Mother's day, with Sarah, Brian, Roxy & Naomi.

Today I have linked up with The Gypsy Mama for Five Minute Friday, and with P52, which used to be hosted by Darcy, and is now being hosted by Kent Weakley - I hope you will join us.

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt & Sparkle = Life Remarkable

Always looking at the world, trying to find the story, my per

‘All that it takes for Evil to prevail is for man to do nothing’

My Five Minute Friday takes on a heavy story this week -

‘All that it takes for Evil to prevail is for man to do nothing’

‘I thought I’d saved you’,  were the words spoken by Brendan Boland,  at the end of the BBC documentary This World: The Shame of the Catholic Church which was broadcast on Wednesday 2 May 2012 at 2100 BST on BBC Two. 

Brendan Boland was talking to another man that he had not seen for over 30 years.  Not since they had both been sexually abused by Irish paedophile priest, Fr Brendan Smyth, whilst on a trip with him and two other little girls in the early 1970s.  All the children on that trip were sexually abused by Smyth.

Brendan thought he had saved his friend and other children because when he reported the abuse he had suffered to Fr (now Cardinal) Sean Brady and two other priests in 1975, he also gave the names and addresses, of the other children who had been abused on that trip. 

The two reports signed by Cardinal Brady about the abuse of Boland and another boy were passed on to his Bishop, but the police or the children’s parents were never informed.    The other boy, his sister, and cousins were repeatedly abused after Brendan had given their names and addresses over to the Catholic Church.

What strikes me in this story is that Brady had the names and addresses of children that had been and would go onto be abused by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth and that he did nothing with them that stopped the further abuse of children. 

He did not speak out.  He did not pass the information to the police.  He did not tell the children’s parents. 

He did nothing to show those children that he was on their side.

Brady had a choice to make, a real choice – to speak out, and do what was right, to try to save those children, or to stay silent.

He stayed silent.

As a result of his silence countless children suffered from sexual abuse.

The horrors of this story have reverberated from Ireland around the globe.  As I reflect on the torment, torture and pain that children were subjected to because of silence, I think not of the reasons why Brady kept quiet – those to me, are between him and God.  What I think of is the fact, the very real fact that ‘for evil to prevail, all that it takes is for men to do nothing (or stay silent).

How different the lives of those children would have been if Cardinal Brady had spoken out.

 (This World: The Shame of the Catholic Church was presented by Darragh MacIntyre and produced & directed by Alison Millar for the BBC)

Today I am linking up with the Gypsy Mama for Five Minute Friday.  I hope you will join us. 

That’s it for now …

Nics

Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable

alone together

Together

I sit at my computer, fingers flying over the keys.  Tap tap, tap tap.  Words come, and my mind holds a picture of us - together, wherever we are in the world doing the same thing.  Sitting in front of our computers, tapping, hoping the words will come, thinking what to write.  Glancing every now and then, at the second hand, on our little clocks, as the five minutes, becomes four, three, and so on.

We come together, we write and then we share.  We read, we leave comments. We bring encouragement and support.  The words of others touch our hearts, sometimes tears come. 

This world of writing, so solitary, so silent.  So held in our own thoughts.  Lived out in our imaginations can be haunting, but sublime.  The chance on a Friday to come together, to write for ourselves, freely, without edit, to take that risk and put the work out for others to see, together.  Each of us doing the same thing in our corners of the world, possibly feeling the same, we share in a togetherness.

I think of the friends I have made, the people who I have joined with, and I feel so thankful, for this chance to come together.

How about you - do you like coming together?

Today I am joining up with The Gypsy Mama, for Five Minute Friday and Darcy at My 3 Boybarians, for P52 - join us ...

That's it for now.

Nics

Salt & Sparkle = Life Remarkable

The gift in Detail

Today I am linking up with Darcy for her P52 - prompt Detail - and Lisa Jo, for Five Minute Friday with her prompt - Gift.

Again, I have been shooting with my iPhone, which was the only camera to hand over the course of the day. These pictures were taking using the available light, and I feel are a little dark, but as I am posting this on the run, they are what I have got today.  And, sometimes, I truly believe, 'what we have got today' can be perfect. To be able to work with the tools that are placed in front of us at any given moment is a gift, and it's a one that can be learnt.

My parents, frequently told us as we grew up 'a bad workman always blames his tools'.  Part of that proverb is of course true, the bit about the bad workman, and always looking for an excuse.  Someone or something to shirt the responsibility onto, when whatever is being done doesn't work.

They used it to teach us to work with what we had.  To realise that situations weren't always perfect, and there often was a better way to do things, but sometimes we just have to run with what is in front of us. Again and again, they told us being able to work with what we have in any given situation will save your bacon.  Guess what - They were right.

It is a gift I firmly believe to be adaptable, to work with what is in front of us, and to make it work.  Some of my best memories, are of times when I have had to make it work, in the most ridulous of circumtances.

I recall the evening, I was given £10 to cool a three course meal for four, in a kitchen with a gas burner with one setting,  two rickety saucepans, no salt, and no wooden spoon.  Less than ideal.

I worked with what I had, and what was in the fridge - bacon, cabbage, chick peas, vanilla ice cream, and there was a bar of toberlone, and some rice lurking in the back of the cupboard.

I made crudites and houmous.  Followed by bacon & cabbage risotto and then vanilla ice cream with Toberlone sauce.  It was a feast, and went down perfectly.  How did I work without salt - that Irish secret, salted butter.

The photographs I am sharing with you today, are from a function in the new Titanic Building in Belfast, the staff were preparing to host a banquet, and the tables each had bunches of spring flower on them.  Their colour made me smile.  The flowers brought a joy to the room, and created an amibance of colour. When I walked into the loos, several more little bunches of spring flowers greeted me. I couldn't help but smile.  Boring tiled loo's were full of the colour of spring. Flowers on the table, and the bathrooms.  The detail of creating an experience in all parts of the function was a gift for those attending, it brought smiles to faces, and was endlessly remarked upon.

How do you like to give gifts in detail?

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable

Rudy - probably the most intelligent dog that ever lived

The stillness of death lingers in our home.  The kitchen is empty.  

She's not there anymore.  Poking her head into the fridge.  On the look out for tasty morsels.  Standing on my toes.  Slipping her nose into the bread drawer, and sneaking a loaf, when my back is turned.  Following my every move, mirroring my steps.  Standing between the shelf and I, as I knead dough.  Checking out the door of the aga to see if there is anything tasty to nibble on coming out.  Giving me a poke with her nose, when she thought my attention was to focused elsewhere.

Her head doesn't rest on my knee as I sit at the table to read the paper.  Or when I'm eating, she's not there anymore to us her nose to get in under my arm, and knock it upwards, as if to say, 'I'm here Nicky, don't ignore me, what your eating looks good, share some with me.'

In our family there is a gap.  Toby wanders looking for her, and snuggles into us.   He feels our sadness.  He shares our sadness.  His constant companion for 15 years has gone.

Rudy, possibly the most intelligent dog that ever lived passed away this week.  

Abandoned on our doorstep when she was little over days old.  I still remember looking out of the kitchen windon and seeing this little black face head cocked to the side look up at me.  We fell in love with her immediately.

With my brother she was out on the land from dawn to dust.  Travelling on the tractor, sitting on the buggy. She was his shadow.  He trained her to search, and carry, to lie on the ground, as he toiled at it.  They both would come in after days of hard work, to stretch before the fire, the heat caressing their tired muscles.  His heart is heavy.   She was his dog.  This is my favourite photograph I took of them last year in the snow.

Rudy was a hardy little thing, a lab/collie, she had that natural instinct to herd.  So when Coco, my dalmatian would bound along beside her, urging her to play, she wouldn't stand for any nonsense.  She showed who was in charge by a turn of her shoulder there, a quick movement there.  

A boss, a matriach, our friend - she taught us much about love and loyalty.  About comfort.  Like a mindreader she knew our emotions, our feelings, and she sat with us, when we most needed her touch.  

When we would go out for a walk, she would run a head, them come back to ensure that on one was lost or injured, she waited for us to catch up.  Swimming in the ocean, she would join us in the waves, making sure none of us went under.  I remember going for a run one dreary day, and hearing a light panting behind me, I turned round, and there she was.  She had run after me for a mile, just to check I wasn't going to disappear.

When we returned home at any time of the day, she was there to greet us, with a huge smile, and a wagging tail.  After a days shopping she would be sniffing about the boot of the jeep, looking for her dental sticks.  Her favourite treat.  When I returned from anywhere, she would be out to greet me, before my car door was open.

At dinner parties, she would surprise guests by easing herself under the table, and wandering up and down, silently.  Then placing her head on their knee or hand when they would least expect it, hoping, waiting for them to give her a titbit of what they were eating.

She leaves behind endless memories of joy, and peace.  As I remember, I am still, I feel empty, but also so full of joy at having known this amazing dog.  What a gift dogs are. The most faithful, and loyal of companions.

Rudy we miss you, thank you for being our dog.

Tell me about your dog ...

Today I am linking up with the Gypsymama, and My3boybarians P52 - join us?

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable