Wordless Wednesday - A Walk in Wales

Go to Wordless Wednesday hq or 5 minutes for mom for more participants.

Menu Plan Monday - Dec 10th

This week we have to do some Christmas baking. I don't know how we are going to manage but I really want to do it with Big Monkey so it's vital. The problem is that her attention span is still short and Little Monkey can't really help at all yet.
Perhaps I'll do it all by myself in the evening and just leave a tiny bit of dough for the Monkeys so that they think they've done it.
Any suggestions?

My parents are coming for a pre-Christmas visit this week. It's been about six months since we met so we are all looking forward to it. This is what will be on our table this week.

MONDAY Veggie burgers with boiled potatoes and veg

TUESDAY Leek soup from the freezer and leftover pasta

WEDNESDAY Savoury bread and butter pudding (A favourite of P.'s)

THURSDAY Savoury waffles

FRIDAY Potato, leek and mushroom bake

SATURDAY Cous cous

SUNDAY Roasted vegetables with rice (my mother's speciality)

Visit Laura to see what other people are cooking this week.

Thursday thirteen #5 The Ballad of Lee Cotton

I've just finished reading the novel "The Ballad of Lee Cotton" by Christopher Wilson and want to write a review for the Fall into Reading Challenge. I hope all you Thursday Thirteeners will enjoy reading something about this novel and perhaps even be inspired to read it as well. So this week I'm writing

Thirteen Things about "The Ballad of Lee Cotton":

1. Lee Cotton, the hero of this novel, is born in Eureka, Mississippi in 1950 just after a bull is found dangling from a tree forty feet up and before it rains bull-frogs. His birth is just as strange.
2. His full name is Leifur Nils Kristjansson Saint Marie du Cotton.
3. At a later stage he changes his name to Lee McCoy.
   
4. He is a black boy with "buttermilk skin, azure-blue eyes, and straw-blond hair". Identity conflicts are present throughout.
5. He lives through and is shaped by racial segregation and the Civil Rights movement.
   
6. He also hears voices. A gift he maybe inherited from his voodoo practising grandmother in New Orleans.
7. The plot is so weird and unusual I would love to write lots of details but I don't want to give anything away.
8. The British author, Christopher Wilson, wrote this book from North London. He never visited the American Deep South but spent three months virtually there through the internet.
9. "The Ballad of Lee Cotton"is just called "Cotton" in the U.S..
10. This novel was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize in 2005 and was described by the judges as "wholly original, utterly riveting and full of surprises".
11. It really is surprising and very funny. Lee is such a sympathetic character, you can't help but like him and wonder what's going to happen to him next.
12. This book is FUN. The plot is fantastically unrealistic but I never felt that it was too silly or unbelievable while reading.
13. I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind a bit of weirdness!
    
    

Click here to read more TT lists. Or go to Callapidder Days to find more reviews for the reading challenge.

Wordless Wednesday - 5th December

Click here for more photos. Happy WW.

Menu Plan Monday - Dec 3rd

I've started knitting myself a cardigan and have hardly switched the computer on for over a week. This meant that I didn't refer back to last weeks plan very much and only followed about 2/3 of it. I hope to finish the cardigan soon and get back to posting a little more often, and checking this week's menu plan, of course.

MONDAY Creamy parsnip soup with baguette

TUESDAY Veggie burgers with potatoes, green beans, carrots and sweetcorn

WEDNESDAY Sweet potato curry from the freezer with rice

THURSDAY Moosewood Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

FRIDAY Pizza with lots of vegetable toppings.

If you're looking for more Menu Plan Monday participants check out Laura's blog. Have a great week.