June - Nothing much happened
"Things I did in June. Um... Crap, I'm really not sure that I actually did anything! I don't even seem to have gone to the cinema. I went to Kew Gardens for a picnic, but spent the whole day just sitting eating and chatting, which was lovely, but not really of blog worthy report. I didn't even go to Cambridge, they came to me for once! I finished Batman Arkham Origins, and frankly that isn't really worthy of the pixels taken to write that sentence. I'd like to say July will be more exciting, but given it's nearly half way through by the time I'm writing this, I wouldn't get your hopes up.
Baking
I did bake some stuff at least. I'm doing a wedding cake in a couple of weeks so have been practising my Victoria sponges. I never really make them, or chose them, always going for other more exciting cakes, but I forget how tasty a fresh Victoria Sponge can really be. After some experiment I'd say fresh whipped cream and raspberries are best (strawberries are a bit too wet and slippery), although they're logistically harder as the cream doesn't keep. So I'm going to have to assemble the cake on site which is a bit tricky. I'll report back next month!
For the picnic, despite only being 4 adults and 3 children I made sausage rolls (shop bought pastry, I felt dirty), mini spinach and feta pies (also shop bought pastry, I don't feel bad about that, I draw the line at making filo!), chocolate biscuits from a random book that weren't really all that amazing and an apricot and marzipan loaf from the Great British Bake Off Showstoppers book that was so good I made another one the following week.
Films I watched
Reading
Two non-fiction and two fiction in June, not bad! The two non-fiction were a mixed bag, The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth is a good book for short commutes (or I guess a bathroom book) as the information comes thick and fast, but with a lot of humour. When I tried to read in longer installmants though it overwhelmed. A Little History of Science by William Bynum suffers from trying to cover too much too briefly and seems to be targeted at a very young audience, but I'm not sure that anyone who didn't find the language patronising would be able to engage with the subject.
I continue to work through the backlog of ebooks from my housemates so am reading a lot of sf and fantasy. Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane didn't work for me as well as his other works have, I thought the concept wasn't as solidly built and didn't really connect to the characters. Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker however was a really punchy interesting work with a fascinating world behind it. It was a little disjointed at times, but it was a fun read.
Television
I'm stuggling to keep up with my reviewing as many series come to an end, so there's a bit of a backlog. I've recently posted: