Rice Pudding

We're into Day Two of living with no hot water or oven. I've been studying the Edmonds Microwave Cookbook this afternoon, and there's a lot of weird-sounding, terrible-looking stuff in there, or I don't have the right sort of container to cook it in. Until I came to page 155 - Rice Pudding. Turned out outrageously good, especially when Sweeney wasn't looking and I doused mine in golden syrup. I know rice pudding can be controversial - to stir or not, to encourage skin or not, to add jam or not - and this certainly wasn't what I remember my mum and Nana turning out for us, but it was still mighty good.

It's set me off to scarf some golden syrup on splushy bread after dinner. Out of interest, I looked at the list of ingredients on the golden syrup bottle - cane sugar and water, it says. I wonder why I went to the trouble of cutting sugar out of my coffee - I probably just ate a year's worth tonight.

Sweeney's discovered Richard Scarry's Great Big Air Book. It's been on his shelf since he was born, and he pulled it down with all his other books the other day when he was ripping his room apart in protest at being given the opportunity to nap in the afternoon.

It's a neat concept - air, how air works, what it is, the physics of flight, that sort of thing. It's made Sweeney notice the breeze in the trees, and he gave me a little lecture about the difference between planes and helicopters today. Lovely seeing how interested in books he is. The last thing we read in it tonight was about the difference between jet aircraft and non-jet aircraft. It's all delivered in a not-too-wordy style, lots of pictures, and a few of those great Scarry cross-section illustrations that keep kids absorbed for ages, nutting out the details. Right now, this book is tucked up under Sweeney's arm while he's asleep.

Before the excitement of rice pudding and the latest instalment from the Great Air Book, he set this photo up for me. He's dead keen on the camera, and can tell the difference between my camera and the piece of cardboard I drew a shutter and some knobs onto for him. He's pretty funny, working out the relationship between the viewfinder and the picture that eventuates. Anyway, this is the kimono for the poppet over the road. The one I finished a while ago, well, that went to Ethan, whose brother's at Sweeney's pre-school. I've got the pink version of this sewn up for Esme, but goodness knows when I'll ever get over to Brooklyn to give it to her.

I don't feel like my wool stash is getting terribly much smaller, yet I feel that my fingers are becoming one with my knitting needles. Sigh ...