Book review...Doors Open

I only learnt to drive about a year and a half ago, and have yet to own my first car so I have always had a close relationship with public transport! Currently living in the middle of London and working in Kent, my closest friend at the moment is the 7:08 to Tunbridge Wells so I spend an awful lot of time reading - meaning I always need a good book in my bag so I don't need to succumb to the celebrity pages of the Metro!

I just finished 'Doors Open' by Ian Rankin - one of Jimmy's that he hasn't yet read from Christmas.
It was probably different to what I would normally read, but I'm broaden my reading horizons a little bit lately and have been trying out lots of different genres and authors.

Doors Open is a crime novel I suppose, but with a bit of a twist in the sense that the main characters hatch a plan to 'liberate' some priceless artworks that are being stored away from public view.

The book has quite a few twists and turns, and although a lot of people may see the ending coming it took me a while! There's some very interesting characters, and the story is easy to read - a bonus for early mornings! It's also set in Edinburgh, and having visited a few years ago it was good fun remembering the landmarks that the characters visited.

ITV made a tv movie of the book which showed over Christmas, so I'm now looking forward to watching Steven Fry's portrayal of the art school professor!

Just a little baking...

I've just made this recipe again, and it was just as good the second time so I thought it was worth posting! I got this from a recipe calendar, but can't remember the magazine it came from...and adapted slightly.

50g unsalted butter
175g plain white flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
100g caster sugar
1 egg
120ml milk
125g blueberries
100g white chocolate (chopped)

Heat oven to 180 degrees, and grease and line a loaf tin with baking paper.
Mix the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl.
Melt the butter, and allow to cool a little before whisking together with the egg and milk. Beat into the flour mixture.
Mix in the berries and chocolate before pouring into a loaf tin.
Bake for approx 50-55 mins and leave to cool before turning out of the tin.

This cake is so easy, and the blueberries make it really moist. Drizzle with icing, or dust with icing sugar to finish!

Oslo in pictures

Just before Christmas we took a little trip to Oslo for the weekend, to enjoy some serious snow! We woke up on the first morning to this:

It was super cold, and we stocked up on thermals before we went. However, we were amazed at how life simply goes on as normal with such heavy snow yet grinds to a standstill when we have just a couple of centimetres in England!

We got ourselves an 'Oslo pass' on the first day, which worked out really good value as it got us onto buses and into all of the attractions and museums for free.

One of the highlights was seeing two versions of The Scream at the Edvard Munch gallery, which was really fantastic having studied the painting in my school art lessons! (See Jimmy doing his best 'Scream' impression!)

Many of Oslo's museums are on Bygdoy, which is a peninsula to the Western side of Oslo. This was great as we headed over there and were able to walk from museum to museum around the island. We saw a lot of boats including the Polar Ship Fram, Kon Tiki (to the left) and some Viking boats.




We also visited the Norwegian Folk museum, probably my favourite as it was an open air museum that allowed you to walk around houses and buildings through the ages.






However, the best was yet to come...on the Sunday we went toboganning! Neither of us had done anything similar before, but both agreed it was awesome! We had to get on a little train up to the top of the slopes, which was pretty eerie at first as the train dropped us off in the middle of what looked like an arctic wilderness!

However, we found our way and spend the whole morning whizzing down the slopes and occasionally falling into snowdrifts (mostly me). Even Reginald enjoyed himself!

An amazing weekend away, and a fantastic way to get in the festive spirit!