Up Periscope - Vintage Banksy Graffiti Made into a Print

I've had this lovely Banksy snap knocking around in my archives for a while but hadn't really done anything with it up to a few days ago when I cropped and re-sized it for my secret new project which is in the pipeline. As I'd tweaked it to look much better than it had previously I decided to add it to my little shop. I wonder if it actually exists on the streets of London any more, I know these things don't last forever and I did shoot it some time ago.

Up Periscope - From Eyeshoot $35

This deserves to be on Etsy's Front Page!

Here's a stunning Treasury which features my Path Through Moss print, and many other beautiful items:

Ode to Oscar the Grouch
by Haut Totes

Lincoln Cathedral and some new kit.

After much reading on websites about remote shutter release devices for my D300 and getting very confused, I decided to phone Calumet who have always advised me well in the past. I settled on a very reasonably priced own label set up which has a radio trigger kit and an adapter for my Nikon camera. One half of the trigger kit is attached to the camera by Velcro or a metal clip (I was hoping for a hot shoe fitting which would be nice and neat, but that wasn't to be.) and the other half if a little do-dah with a button which fires off the shutter. I had a very quick play yesterday and it works which is a good start, but I'll have to have a proper session with the camera on the tripod and set up in Live View Mode which is how I'll be using this new arrangement on my next shoot for Balfour Beatty.

I also got around to sorting through my pictures from Lincoln Cathedral and here's a taster:

Now available as coasters!

In an exciting new development, a selection of my photographs are being made into waterproof ceramic coasters by Bill at House of Six Cats, he's using a range of images from members of the Photographers of Etsy Team of which he is one of the co-leaders.

The coasters are printed using an Epson R2880 Exhibition quality printer, on a state of the art material that is water-proof, smudge-proof, and stain resistant. The material is also self adhesive so it creates a permanent bond with the tile, and this means there is virtually no transitional lip from print to tile. Each tile measures 4.25” x 4.25" and is backed with black foam that ensure against table abrasion and sliding. They can also be used as back-splashes in the kitchen or bathroom which could look rather amazing!

Here's a shot of the four finished tiles, I think they look rather lovely.

Four Ceramic Coasters - $20 with free postage

One set has already sold out of Bill's shop which is great for both of us, and they are also available from my shop. He has artwork for two more sets using my images, one set of four different graffiti pictures and one using my Crosby Steps photo which will be printed over all four so that they fit together to make one big image. They're not available yet, but hopefully it won't be long.

I've made another sale on RedBubble which is one of those selling sites that I tend to forget about as it runs so smoothly and doesn't bombard me with messages and newsletters that I don't really bother with it, but with the notification that someone has bought a framed print of The Ministry of Silly Walks I remembered that they also offer calenders. As I have made my own calendar I thought I may as well offer a similar range of images there, so this morning, I have made one brand new one with a few clicks of the mouse and it's there in my shop looking lovely. If fact it was so simple that I totally edited and redesigned one which I had made ages ago.

I've got a meeting this morning about some exciting new goings on which I'll write about in more detail when I know for sure what's happening......

And to finish off and to add another picture, here's a Treasury:

Simply Morocco
by Vintage Bess

Featured twice and multitasking.

I've been very good this morning and have had a good session at the gym with my new iTrain workout which I do on the cross trainer. It's only for thirty mins which isn't as long as some of the others which I do regularly, but it gives me plenty of time to do my weights, abs and stretches and leave after an hour feeling very virtuous. Today I destroyed 750 of the calories I scoffed during our four hour Chinese lunch yesterday!

I've also been working on the photos from the Balfour Beatty shoot on Friday. They all look good but my Sigma wide lens is seriously filthy and I'm spending most of my time removing the splodges which is irritating to say the least. Also some are looking a bit soft so I think that if I am going to get more work like this (fingers crossed) I may have to look into getting a remote shutter release which should solve that little problem.

I've also almost finished booking my surveys in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire for tomorrow and Wednesday amidst all of this fevered activity have managed to find that my work is featured in two more Treasuries today - how nice!

All Together
by PDX Craft

Chestnut
By The Brick Kiln

Many thanks to both curators for including my work in your lovely Treasuries!

Look at these three lovely Treasuries!

I'm featured in three gorgeous Treasuries today - how wonderful and many thanks to the three clever curators for taking the time to find my work!

A Woodland Walk
by Paisley Chainsaw
Hurrah - made it to the Front Page!!

Black and White
by Mr Yen

We are all Human Beings....fragile as eggs
By Heidi Burton

Despite my lack of posts, I have been busy, or perhaps that's why there's been a lack of posts....
I have had some major software glitches and was without CS4 for some time and only got it all back if full working order yesterday and have been busy making the print your own version of my 2010 calendar which should be in my shops very soon.

I've been busy working with my mother, we spent a day in the Lake District which was totally stunning, the autumn colours were perfect - we didn't do much work, but somehow managed to be in the car for 12 hours which isn't great, but at least it was pretty!

Then I did a proper shoot for Balfour Beatty at a school on Friday afternoon which went well and will hopefully lead to plenty more similar work in the future. I'll be getting on with the post production for that on Monday.

Tuesday and Wednesday mum and I are off on our travels again to Yorkshire and then over to Lincoln where we will stay overnight. I don't think I've ever been before, but I do have a major soft spot for cathedrals and must make the effort to get to see it properly before we get on with our work, and take my camera.

Then we're off on Friday to London for a family Bar Mitvah on Saturday which will take us through to Sunday. It will be good to see family I haven't seen for ages.

Off shortly for Dim Sum at Glamorous with friends, and I'm looking forward to indecent amounts of steamed prawn dumplings and choi sum with garlic, yummy!

Eyeshoot's First Calendar has been born!

I've finally finished my 2010 calendar - for the last couple of years I've wanted to do one but just haven't got around to it, but this year I seem to have got my act together! I think it looks great - I especially like the clear cd style cases, they're so simple and effective. I plan to make a 'print it yourself' version as well and possibly a version all on one page like a poster as I've seen other that sell well on that layout and now I've got the artwork sorted out I can tweak it to my heart's content!

The images are a collection of my favourites all of which have been for sale in my Etsy shop, some are very good sellers, others undiscovered gems!

You can find it here.





I've been very busy lately which shows in the scarcity of posts here.....I've had plenty to say and show, but haven't quite got around to it. I was working in London for three days with mum last week which was hard work, but it's always nice to be there for a while. We had a terrible journey home, arriving back late on Thursday and then the next morning, Peter and I drove for seven hours to start our long weekend in Dartmouth for a family wedding. I took photos as a freebie, I haven't even looked at them yet & we have the happy couple staying with us on Wednesday this week so I'd better get my skates on and at least do a first edit. On Thursday we're off to stay with our friends in Henley and in the evening going to The Young Vic to see one of Peter's sons in a play called Lub You at the Young Vic. The short play was in the 24:7 theatre festival in Manchester this summer and was voted as one of the three most popular plays which let to a short run at the Bolton Octagon and then to London. There's a great website designed by Peter and built by anther of his sons.

I've been planning and cooking a supper tonight for seven for what seems like forever. We're just having a swift g&t while we wait for our guests to arrive. On the menu:
Smoked Mackerel Mousse with capers and salad leaves.
Boeuf Bourguignon with new pototoes and green veg.
Pears poached in spiced vanilla syrup with chocolate sauce.
Brie with garnishes.

I need a holiday.

Chocolate Pavlova

Here's the yummy pudding I made for supper last Sunday, if you want to read all the detail, just click and it should pop up in another window large enough to read.

It was very delicious!

Julie Julie Julie 50 Today

Julie Julie Julie 50 Today, originally uploaded by Eyeshoot Photography.

I like this one - it somehow seems to be a spontaneous sort of design.

Shot on the same old roundabout as usual.

Does anyone know what this flower is called?

Fallen Blossom., originally uploaded by Eyeshoot Photography.

I photographed this gorgeous flower exactly as I found it on the cobbled floor at the Triada Monastery in Crete. I have no idea what type of flower it is and would be grateful if anyone can help me with a name.

A Few Photos From Crete

A small selection of pictures taken on my recent trip to Crete - you can see many more at my Flickr site. Some new prints will be appearing at my Etsy shop as well.

Postboxes at Stavros.

Three Domes at the Triada Monastery

Monastery Cat.

Cafe Owner at Imbros - maker of Svakian Pies.

The Last Master Baklava Maker in Greece in Rethymon Old Town.

Friendly Olive Trees.

Blue, Green, White and Brown.

Back from Crete and a Treasury

We arrived home from Crete last Tuesday and have been rushing around like a mad thing pretty much ever since. Sunday has offered me the chance for a little down time despite having to bag up and freeze the epic vegetable soup with home made stock which I whipped up yesterday, popping out for ingredients for a chocolate and raspberry pavlova for supper tonight, making the meringue (photographing the process and which is now in the oven smelling yummy), putting on yet more washing, having a quick flick through The Observer. Phew. Then when Peter's back we'll be off to the airport to collect my cousin Jamie from Holland who I haven't seen for a million years, taking him to mum's house where he's staying for a couple of days before a pre-uni starting field trip, having lunch at mum's, shopping for the rest of the Pav ingredients not offered this morning by my small local shop, back home to finish the Pav, have a bit of a breather and back to mum's for supper. I 'll need another holiday after all that.

We had a lovely time in Crete and I'm working my way through the 450 photos and they'll be on line soon and there will be some new prints for my shop too.

Here's a lovely Treasury featuring my I Love You print:

I Love You
by Go Bead

Icy, red and preparing for holiday!

It's been a long time since I've posted a Treasury screen shot, so to break the drought, I give you:

Icy
by The Fuzzy Monkey

The Fuzzy Monkey has a shop full of the sweetest felted bowls embellished with buttons, stars and flowers and a cute range of knitted vases. I particularly like this little bowl:

fuzzy red felted wool bowl with three white amaryllis flowers $15

We're off on our hols to Crete on Tuesday and the flurry of finding long forgotten summery clothes has begun- I've rediscovered a fab DKNY dress from years ago which has made me happy, it's long, black, sleeveless, fitted with a tight top and a flared bottom with a zip all the way up the front, it's really comfortable and looks pretty smart, it's a bit faded now, but I think it will be coming along for the trip.....

Off out into town to play with my new little 50mm lens which I bought last weekend and haven't really used yet - I hope the rain stays away.

Mackerel on the bbq.

Fwd: BBQ mackerel., originally uploaded by Eyeshoot Photography.

Mum phoned this morning (well at 11.00) when we were still in our dressing gowns, Peter snoozing and me at my computer having just printed of a print to post to the USA on Monday (I do like to wake up to a sale) to ask if we fancied bbq mackerel for lunch. After considering the proposition for about five seconds we got our acts together and the day begun.

A quick trip into town resulted in my lovely new and much desired Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens to replace and upgrade my similar but slightly lacking 1.8 version of the same. Adam will be pleased that I won't be constantly borrowing his!

Then off to mum's garden in a rare show of properly summery weather. Wine was uncharacteristically refused after our excesses last night and the shiny silvery fishes were slapped on the barbie bursting with bushes of rosemary and lashings of garlic. This was a first time cooking experiment and despite losing most of the skin after the first turning due to not oiling the bars, the results were delicious especially with the flesh liberally sprinkled with Maldon salt, freshly ground black pepper and a good squeeze of lemon juice. The result was very yummy and the rescued bits of skin had crisped up to perfection. I suspect we'll be doing it again!

Contemplating the View.

Mow Cop, originally uploaded by Eyeshoot Photography.

After our visit to Little Moreton Hall (see previous post for picture) we pottered down the road to Mow Cop which is a castle on a hill in Staffordshire. It was built as a summerhouse in 1754 for Randle Wilbraham I of Rode Hall. It's an imposing structure although there's not much left of it!

We had a good scramble around walking off some of the food we'd noshed at Little Moreton, it's not a great walk, only a very short climb up to the top but the views are great.

Here's Laura sitting on a rock to the side of the ruin contemplating the dramatic vista below.

Little Moreton Hall

Little Moreton Hall, originally uploaded by Eyeshoot Photography.

It's been ages since I last blogged, life's been getting in the way but today I got around to uploading some pictures from the last couple of weekends to Flickr so here's one of them.

We visited the stunning Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire with friends last weekend, it's one of the National Trust's smaller properties, in fact, I think it's pretty much the perfect size for a Sunday visit. It's small enough that you don't get bored with looking at too much stuff and it's basic enough and not full of precious pieces to make the staff a bit less paraoid about you getting close to things - there's not much to break.

We had a very nice country style lunch in the tiny tearoom, pottered around tagging on to the end of a tour, sat in the grounds eating ice cream while being hassled and hassling the masses of ducks.

A perfect Sunday's entertainment!

It's pesto time again.

Pesto - The taste of summer!, originally uploaded by Eyeshoot Photography.

I don't have a garden and if I did have, I'm sure it would be full of dead things and weeds as I most certainly don't have a green finger anywhere on my body. One of my regrets in this department is that I miss out on growing edibles, never mind the pretty and useless flowers, I'd use any garden of mine for herbs and veg. I do slightly envy gardening friends at this time of year as they swim in basil and I buy mean little plastic packs from the supermarkets which turn to sludge overnight in the fridge. These packs irritate me so much that I hardly buy the delicious green herb at all these days. But yesterday I was shopping at my local Vegan Co-op Grocery, Unicorn, in Chorlton when I saw the most luscious bunches of basil for only 99 pence each, there was no way I could resist so I picked up two bunches. All I needed to do was to buy some pecorino and some pine nuts and I'd be all ready to make my pesto - here's how

The Ingredients:
2 big bunches of basil
pine nuts
Pecorino or Parmesan cheese, grated
(all of one or a mix of both, the pecorino gives a slightly softer taste.)
4 garlic cloves
the best quality extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

The Method
Blend together the grated cheese, raw garlic and pine nuts. This is much better than using a pestle and mortar because, firstly it will stop your arm from dropping off and secondly and most importantly, it lets in much less air and keeps the colour lovely and vibrant.

Fill the mixer bowl to the top with lovely fresh basil, stalks and all.

Mix and inhale the intoxicating scent.

Drizzle in enough olive oil to make a thick paste.

Season

Pour into sterilized jars, and very important - make sure to cover the top of the pesto with more oil and keep it covered at all times, else it will go off really fast. The jars will keep unopened in the fridge for ages, but eat open jars fairly fast. As if you could leave it alone!

If you make lashings of the gorgeous green goo, you can decant into ice cube trays I'm not blessed with a big freezer and I like to keep my ice cube trays fully primed for gin and tonics so I decant the pesto cubes into a bag. It was a bit of a green and messy fiddle as the cubes wouldn't come out easily, so I warmed their bottoms and then lined up on a board and re-froze the melted edges before putting in a bag. Just pop one in the pan with your pasta before serving for long enough for it to melt - which won't be long. Enjoy!

New paper, nice Treasury.

Here's a lovely pale Treasury with the ever popular Love in a Mist print. The mixture of colours here is really pretty and there are some great items and masses of views!

Pale
By Nature Visions

I've been getting quite a few enquiries about larger prints lately so I made a new listing for 30x20" prints but no one seems to notice it and I always get a Convo first, which is fine but to make it more obvious for potential customers I've been going through my popular prints and adding a link to the larger listing which will hopefully point them in the right direction!

I bought some fab new paper for my prints this week as the super smooth Epson archival paper I'd been using for ages finally ran out. The chosen stock is Brilliant Museum Satin Matte White which is satisfyingly heave at 300gsm, has a very slight sheen and a very slight texture and looks very smart indeed. It took me ages to go through my Etsy shop listings and change the technical blurb to reflect the new paper. I've not bothered with the other shops where the sales seem to be totally random as I've a few sheets of the old stuff left which should do for the next few sales.

I'll be off the the Manchester Craft Centre very soon to meet the Manchester Etsy team for a chat, some tea and toast and to give them a sneak preview of my top secret new photo product.....

Two Treasuries, Three Photos from Morocco

I've not posted any Treasury screenshots for a while, mainly because I've not been in many! But I couldn't resist sharing this one of my favourite place in the world!

Morocco
by Scraps of Paper

There are two of my pictures in it and rather oddly, the lovely Polaroid in the centre top row is a shot which I've captured myself in Tangier. My treatment is very different, but isn't it coincidence that two Etsy people can be in a big and confusing medina and spot exactly the same sign - the pink wall caught my eye, I'll bet that Opart was drawn in by the baskets! My version of it is below.

Restaurant Kasbah

Then there's this lovely eclectic collection with another of my Moroccan photos, it's obviously the place to be at the moment!

Season Ticket
by A Good Vintage

Hanging around.

We were in Liverpool for a few hours on Saturday and came across these hanging trainers outside the Static Gallery as part of their Trainer Monument installation.

Sourdough 4e - The Disaster.

I followed the Bredtopia No Knead instructions to the letter and I know that the dough was meant to be wet, but mine was a big soggy mass, there was no way that I could shape it into a ball as it just oozed all over the place. I had to scrape it back into the bowl and add lots more flour just to keep it from escaping. I baked it in a Le Pentole saucepan with a lid which is the nearest bit of kit I have to the mysteriously named 'Dutch Oven'. The bread looked fantastic and smelled lovely and sour, but when I poked around inside a big crack on the top I found to my dismay that the inside was not cooked, so I vandalised the loaf a bit by tearing off some of the crust and bunging it back in the oven for another 15 mins. It didn't work......the crust is lovely, shiny, crusty and sour but the inside is a damp mess. There seem to be some bubbles but bleargh.

I don't know how to alter what I did - perhaps my starter was too runny, perhaps making the starter in a hot and humid heatwave wasn't the most sensible thing to do, perhaps mixing one person's starter instructions with another's cooking instructions wasn't a good plan......

So I suppose I'll feed my starter again tonight and start the process again and bake on Monday or Tuesday. This time I'll follow Dan Steven's recipe as I've made the starter his way but I think that I'll cook it in the pot even if I knead it, as I like the contained shape and the perfect round. I like the shiny super crispy top and if it rises more next time it should be lovely.

The experiment continues.

Watch this space for Sourdough 5.

Supper at The Market Restaurant.

I guessed the location of my mystery birthday supper last night as Peter gave directions to the cab driver - The Northern Quarter could only mean The Market Restaurant where I hadn't eaten for years. The Market is one of those restaurants which becomes somewhat of an institution after being around for many years from the days when the now super-trendy Northern Quarter was a seriously non-cool and somewhat sad former rag-trade area. I'd always perceived the MR as a bit of a secret hiding in a dodgy part of town and would frequently hear rave reviews about it. I always used to enjoy reading the prettily illustrated menu which was printed in every issue of the now deceased City Life magazine. I recall eccentric opening hours, a lovely quirky interior and mismatched antique glasses and crockery and a great atmosphere with excellent front of house service and of course splendid food.

So I was delighted at the prospect of my first visit after a very long time, it could have been as long as ten years ago when we had an excellent Sunday lunch. We arrived and sat at our choice of table - it was less than half full I think, it's a very small space downstairs with another room upstairs. The bar is in the middle of the room and I sat facing the bar as I like to see what's going on, I like to see what's happening when the staff aren't interacting with customers - I think you get a very good insight into a restaurant this way....

We started off with Henriot Champagne with raspberry liqueur - rather like Kir Royale, but a bit more subtle. It was £7.50 a glass and came in a very pretty Henriot branded glass but it was minute and definitely not worth the money and I'm afraid that we did mention this to our waiter and he very kindly came back and topped up our glasses when we'd polished them off.

We both ordered Gazpacho with goats cheese and basil tortellini (£5.25) I adore gazpacho, it's one of my all time favourite dished, I love to order it in Spain where you get a whole plethora of exciting goodies to sprinkle on to the soup - croutons, garlicky mayonnaise, chopped cucumber, tomato and onion....fun and delicious! I also love to make it, it must the easiest soup in the world to make - just fling gloriously ripe tomatoes, fresh green cucumber, red peppers and garlic (some recipes incorporate bread, but I don't like the slimy result) into the blender and add water to the right consistency, either chunky and rustic or sophisticated and smooth. Then you chill it to within an inch of it's life. The most important thing is that it's super cold, I've even served it with olive oil filled ice cubes to make sure that it's perfect when it arrives at the table. That's the whole point of the dish, like crispy roast potatoes, or a melt in the mouth steak. So imagine my disappointment when it arrived without any goodies to sprinkle and shock horror, was actually tepid if not slightly warm. There were three tortellini and I was disappointed and very surprised to find that it wasn't cooked through, and had that nasty raw flour hard-centered bite to it. I couldn't really taste the goats cheese or basil through the flavour of uncooked flour. So once I'd managed to attract some attention, it went back to the kitchen to be 'made again'. About fifteen minutes later it re-emerged looking exactly the same with the addition of three ice cubes. The soup was still tepid and the tortellini were still uncooked. We drank the soup and left the raw pasta. I refrained from mentioning that the soup was tasteless as I thought that might be a bit much.....but there was no garlic, no punch and no zing. It was a bit like a tinned tomato soup left to cool a bit. The starters were removed from the bill.


The first soup - you can tell the pasta is uncooked just by the lack of 'glisten'.

The second soup - spot the ice-cubes!

For the main course I was going to chose the Pan fried sea bass, vanilla mash, butternut squash, hazelnut crusted scallop (£17.95) as I love sea bass and scallops are always a real treat. While I was pondering two portions of this dish arrived at the table next to us and there was the biggest serving of mash you could imagine with two tiny little fillets of bass - it really didn't look like £17.95's worth so I changed my mind and chose instead Hake wrapped in Parma ham, broccoli puree, roasted potatoes, red wine jus (£15.95) which turned out to be an excellent choice. The portion of hake was very substantial, thick, white and flaky. The Parma ham was just the right side of salty and meaty, the broccoli puree which I didn't fancy at all was lovely. I'd ordered new potatoes rather that roast and they were obviously reheated as they were too soft and squashy, but I didn't really want spuds at all, so wasn't too bothered. Peter had duck which he'd been informed would be cooked pink, but it wasn't. He declined to mention it. We drank a very nice bottle of French Voignier (£18.95) which wasn't sufficiently chilled and had to be put in a wine bucket to cool further, this had to sit on the floor as there wasn't room on the table.



For pudding we both had chocolate mousse which was delicious, very dark and with that lovely French texture which comes from not using cream in the recipe, just eggs and butter (I didn't ask, but it's how the mousse I make at home feels). It was rather bizarrely and pointlessly served with stale popcorn dotted around the plate - I don't know if I missed something there, but I didn't get it at all! We had a glass each of delicious sticky wine - Muscat I think it was, perfectly chilled and seriously yummy.


Then there was the birthday 'cake' which was a shot glass of elderflower Eton mess with a very nice raspberry sorbet and a chorus of Happy Birthday from the two waiters!

So not a perfect evening but a most enjoyable one!

Thank You Etsy!

No one in my house seems to have remembered it's my birthday, but Etsy has - hurrah for large non-memory loss databases!

Off to yoga now, it's still terribly humid, but seems to be cooler now.

Beautiful!

I haven't been featured in a Treasury for ages and was starting to get a bit paranoid, but here today is a change in my luck and it's a real beauty!

Fresh

by Swept from the Sea

Look at this lovely necklace from her shop made from pretty, cool coloured sea glass - perfect for summer!

Sea Glass Necklace - Olive Green And White Sterling Silver Adjustable 25$

I've had a super hot day doing surveys in Lancashire today, there was a converted bleach works, a totally empty wallpaper showroom, a stone merchants and finally a rural garden centre where we measured about a dozen poly-tunnels and for a special treat, a glasshouse in the scorching sun......

A bit later I'll be feeding my Starter so that I can finally get The Bread underway tomorrow as a special Birthday activity.....I'll deal with it when I get back from yoga. Also my first 30x20" print for a customer will be ready to collect from the lab and I can't wait to see how Love in a Mist (it's the one in the Treasury above) looks so big. I've also had three test prints on Fuji Pearl Metallic paper done and I really hope they look as good as I'm expecting then I can add that as an option to all my prints which I think will add a nice new dimension.

Sourdough 4d

This morning I fed my starter in the same fashion as Tuesday and yet again it did nothing much until about 5pm and now it's lovely and bubbly and has risen nicely. Which means that it takes about nine hours to peak.

I've been trying to work out when I can actually make some bread with the thing as it's quite easy to forget that that is actually the aim of the whole performance! I'm out working all day tomorrow and won't have time nor inclination to play with flour before I leave or when I get home. I'll be at my birthday bbq at mum's all Saturday afternoon and no doubt evening too, so the last thing I'll want to do is faff with bread when we get home. So Friday's my window of opportunity. I'll be at yoga from 9.30 - 11.00, and home by 11.30 so my plan is:

Miss the morning feed tomorrow (Thursday).
Feed at bedtime tomorrow so that it's at it's peak about nine hours afterwards which will be about 7.30 so if I'm super organized, at about 8.30 before I go to yoga, I can mix the dry ingredients, cover and ignore for 18 hours which will take me to 3am on Saturday. I'm sure a little longer proving won't hurt and then when I surface on Saturday (9.30ish) I can shape the dough, leave for another 1.5 hours and then bake before we go to mum's to celebrate my 38th.....Then I can eat fresh sourdough bread when I get home!

I'm definitely doing the no knead method as I think that it sounds like a technique which I can actually manage nicely now that I'll be going out and doing a proper job for a change.....

I'm getting excited about it now and keep chattering away to poor Peter about starters, bubbles and feeding schedules! He might appreciate it when there's actually some bread to eat!