...is that the signal that it is ready is the smell spreading across the flat. One of the best smells in the world. Of course, if you don't pay attention the first time, the next warning you get is the smell of burnt bread, which is by no means so pleasant....

The practice of music, in my experience, has a curious effect on character. It may be that, being the most spiritual of all the arts, to be exposed to it is close to being exposed to Spirit itself; but I have often been struck to what extent many musicians, people who live day in and day out with the most noble and beautiful and enlivening and ( Read more... )

Once upon a time there was an old sage who lived in Paris in a house so full of books that he had barely space to move; and he had read them all. He had written more than sixty books and altogether invented his own discipline, and when he was admitted to the highest academic institution in France, he was described as a "more than encyclopedic ( Read more... )

I miscalculated the starting amount of chickpeas and ended up with an absolutely COLOSSAL amount of humus. Just as well that I love the stuff and that eating it is never a chore. In fact, what with humus, chestnuts to be roasted, and fresh tomato for salad, this is going to be a very pleasant couple of food days ( Read more... )

God bless you both, you children of the morning ( Read more... )

Yes, the keyboard works. If I had not forced myself away from it, I would still be there now, picking tunes. It is absolutely wonderful. The only danger is that - even though it seems to me rather small compared with some I have seen - it has so many tricks and features that it is perfectly possible to go on for minutes playing something very ( Read more... )

There is only one problem with baking your own bread or mixing the dough for your own pizza. You end up with something so delicious that you inevitably eat more of it than you really need.

Those not born in Britain may not know what I mean, but I have just purchased the CDs of two more of Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas - Iolanthe and The gondoliers. They are the peak of comedic music, better, in my view, than the best of Strauss, Offenbach or Lehar. And to my delighted surprise, the versions I found - by chance - in a second-hand ( Read more... )

"What have you done today to make you feel proud?" Well, most of what I have done has been the exact opposite - for one thing I suffer from an addiction to food that needs to be curbed. But I have completed the prologue to a new HP universe novel-length story called KATHARINE MALFOY: VENGEANCE ITSELF, which I intend to publish in one or two of ( Read more... )