Time really does seem to fly in this weird early part of the year. We’ve settled back into work and our usual routines of getting up far too early without neglecting the enjoyable parts of life entirely.

Shadow of War…dor?

After many hours our time in Shadow of War is drawing to a close. There are a crazy number of missions and quite an intriguing storyline behind it all. We’ve defeated the Nazgul, tackled a Balrog and are getting close to going toe to toe with the Witch King of Angmar. Some of the encounters feel like fan service, but the Lord of the Rings trilogy concluded almost twenty years ago and having a refresher on the lore and baddies is more than welcome.

Panettone Panic – Part Two

Following my first panettone challenge, I decided to try at home on a day I didn’t have to travel or bake in a dodgy gas oven. I was able to better control the proving time as well, although I didn’t have any plain flour so substituted bread flour instead. Some recipes specify bread flour rather than plain, and given that it’s a essentially a sweet form of bread, I figured it couldn’t hurt that much.

Pre-baking, the panettone looked in a much better state than last time. As before, I made a shallow cross-cut in the top and placed some butter in there. After the success of simply greasing and flouring the tin, I followed the same approach and eschewed greaseproof paper. One of my first thoughts on taking the result out of the oven was that the mixture could happily be reduced by a third given the rather bombastic mushroom-esque appearance.

The final result did resemble a giant muffin, but at least it held together rather than pouring out of the tin like the previous attempt. I also used a digital thermometer to gauge dough temperature but this led to a little overbaking, so judging it by eye might be a better technique for future. The end result was pretty tasty, but I preferred the flavour and texture of the one made with plain flour. Interestingly Sarah had the opposite opinion, so it probably comes down to personal preference and previous experience. I am relatively new to panettone whereas she has tried several different kinds.

Office Renovations

I’m sure I’ve complained about it before, but that won’t stop me from complaining again. I really hated the bookshelves left by the previous owner in our office. They were the cheap variety, veneer-faced chipboard and sagging in the middle. The configuration was also really weird and must have been born out of convenience.

My aim was to create more usable space in an attractive way, integrating the bulkhead more naturally. How I would do that was another matter entirely. The first step was demolition and stripping everything back to get a better idea of what was underneath. It wasn’t exactly pretty.

Turns out that the way to deal with problems is just cover them with bookcases. Instantly a number of issues cropped up. The plaster was damaged in part of the wall, and other parts were lacking plaster entirely. There was a hole with a bare wire which was unaccounted for and not connected or close to any terminal. I was going to have to learn a few skills to get this done right, and eventually ask myself the question, how much should I have left alone? The beauty of hindsight, but I’ve started the project and I intend to finish it. This will no longer be the hidden dodgy bookcase room.

As part of the demolition, I removed the old cupboard frame and used a sheet of plywood to protect the bulkhead from damage. I had it cut to size by Totem Timber although it was a fraction out and needed some slight adjustments.

Now for the real work…