This week I got a huge package of goodies from a “swap buddy” in New Zealand. We were partners in a swap-bot swap sometime ago when I sent her a yarn ball wrapped in a rose patterned tea towel. She loved the tea towel so much she asked if I could get more items in the same pattern and we organised a little private swap. I sent her some more rose patterned goodies, some English delicacies (Jaffa Cakes and Batchelors Cup-A-Soup) and some other goodies and in return she sent me all of this –

A tea-towel with New Zealand flowers on it, a squeezy tomato ketchup bottle, “Tiki” salad servers, a copy of “The Listener” a NZ magazine, 2 balls of The Wool Company Utiku Merino Possum Yarn (yes yarn made from possums!), a bath tea-bag, a NZ fridge magnet, button badge, NZ magnetic poetry (lots of NZ expressions I had to have explained), the cutest little brooch with two tiny needles and a piece of knitting, “Twisters” (NZ cheesy corn snack – bit like Wotsits), 2 bars of dark NZ chocolate and a jar of NZ marmite.

Phew! a real slice of New Zealand here in my own back garden in England. The magnetic poetry had to have some translation so here are some New Zealand phrases –

“jandals” = flip-flops in UK, thongs in US/Australia and most of world
“pack a sad” = to react negatively rather than get on with things. You might say “don’t pack a sad” meaning lighten up.
“smoko” = morning or afternoon tea (even if you don’t smoke). Someone will say “lets have a smoko” meaning lets take a break
“piker” = a kill-joy or someone who won’t join in
“rattle your dags” = hurry up
“puckeroo” = refers to something that has broken

I was interested to receive the marmite as I had assumed marmite was peculiar to England, although I was aware that in Australia they have vegemite (a poor imitation). To those of you in the US who have no idea what marmite is, it is a yeast extract which you spread on toast or sandwiches, it’s very salty and has a taste which you either love or hate. This love/hate is used as the advertising for marmite in the UK. Marmite is also used to flavour Twiglets which are baked corn snacks which look remarkably like twigs (hence the name)

Whilst I was putting the NZ Marmite away in the cupboard I realised that I had 4 different jars of yeast extract in my kitchen cupboards. I immediately wondered whether they all tasted the same or if each different variety had its own distinct taste….an experiment followed.

I gathered the 4 jars of yeast extract as follows –

From l-r, Vegemite from Australia, original Marmite from England in the new squeezy bottle, Marmite from New Zealand and limited edition Guinness Marmite (made with Guinness yeast extract apparantly)

Next I got two volunteer tasters (me and J) and armed them with pitta bread with which to tast the yeast extract.

We began with the Vegemite, the texture was much more solid than the other three spreads and the colour is the lightest brown of the four. The taste was quite subtle and not as salty as British marmite

Next was the Guinnes Marmite, I was interested to know if this tasted any different to normal marmite or whether this was a marketing ploy. The texture of the Guinness Marmite was the “runniest” of the four and the colour very dark brown. The taste was different to ordinary marmite but still very strong and salty. I love it!

Third was original Marmite, still the best in my opinion. The new squeezy bottle is an inspired innovation IMHO, I use marmite quite a lot in cooking. I’m vegetarian and when I make bolognaise sauce or chilli with soya mince I often add a spoon of marmite for colour and taste – squeezing it in from the plastic bottle is much easier than scraping marmite from a spoon into the saucepan. Still, I digress – original marmite slighty firmer texture than Guinnes Marmite but still runnier than the vegemite, colour very dark brown. Taste, very strong salty taste – delicious.

Finally, the New Zealand Marmite – of the four this was the darkest in colour being almost black and was only slightly less solid than the Vegemite. The taste was very different to the other three – whilst they were all clearly salty with the Vegemite being just more subtle, the New Zealand Marmite tasted completely different and was almost sweet. I like it but not as much as British Marmite. I will have to try it on hot toast which is always the best way to eat marmite.

So the results are that they all taste, and indeed look, very different.

Earlier in the day we attended the wedding of our friends Ceri & Mick at All Saints Church, Marlow. This is Ceri in her beautiful dress

I wore MS3 for the first time to the wedding and here I am in my outfit including the Mystery Stole 3 (btw that’s a feathered head-dress on top of my head, my hair is not quite that wild or bright pink)

I’m really pleased with the way MS3 turned out and it went perfectly with my wedding outfit. The yarn was Patons Fairytale 2ply and I knit on 4mm circulars. Here are some more photos of it taken in the garden when we got home from the wedding this evening.

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Tags: marmite, vegemite, yeast extract, wedding, ms3

Once again another weekend in the Wendys Woolies household where our feet didn’t touch the ground and we spent a total of about 2 hours in our own home!

Starting on Friday I headed over to my mum’s near Oxford and we then went into Oxford to get the bus to Victoria Station in London. From Victoria we got the train to Crystal Palace to attend the Norwich Union Grand Prix Athletics meeting at the Crystal Palace stadium.

We had been a little worried in the last couple of weeks that we were going to have to sit in the rain watching the athletics but the British summer seems to have finally arrived this weekend and so we were sat in wonderful sunshine all evening.

The athletics was really good –

This is GB sprinter Craig Pickering getting ready for the 100 metres (our seats were right in line with the 100m start line)

this is Jo Pavey after she ran the 3000m

this is the sprinters lining up for the final of the Men’s 100m

This is Chris Tomlinson jumping his way to victory in the Long Jump with a jump of 8.16

Unfortunately this evening didn’t end the best way, it was Jason Gardener’s final race meeting and the final event of the evening was the Mens 4×100 relay. Jason ran a wonderful 1st leg and then Craig Pickering and Marlon Devenish managed to drop the baton on the change over between 2nd and 3rd legs!

Still, the night finished with Jason doing a lap of honour in an opentop car and then a firework display

Saturday we had a lovely lunch with some good friends, my friend Julia is turning 40 on Thursday so invited some friends and family to spend an afternoon with her at the Swan at Streatley, a lovely hotel on the River Thames.

I’ve known Julia most of my life – we used to go to Sunday school together from the age of about 5 and all through our childhoods myself, Julia and Julia’s sister Alison were inseperable…they were my substitute sisters as I don’t have any sisters of my own. Julia is about 18 months older than me and Alison is a year younger than me so we’re all very close.

The beautiful summer weather felt like it had been laid on especially, we started with Pimms on the lawn by the river,

(Yes I know that’s a pint, we don’t seem to have any good photos of actual Pimms being consumed!)

A wonderful lunch in the restaurant overlooking the river

first the main course

followed by dessert

and then birthday cake

luckily we managed to prevent Julia’s hubby from flinging the cake at her in the manner of the Phantom Flan Flinger…..the cake was decorated with a photo of the birthday girl aged about 3 or 4 years old and the revelation actually reduced her to tears she was so touched

After lunch (actually about 4pm by the time we got up from the table!) we took our drinks out to the terrace

and had a stroll along the river bank

We finally left at about 6.30 having had an absolutely fantastic day – good food, good weather and good friends, what more could you ask for?

With all this social activity I didn’t get to see Clue 5 – and the theme reveal – for the Mystery Stole until late on Saturday evening. I printed it out at my mum’s and then sat with J and my brother watching Hot Fuzz on DVD whilst I started on Clue 5.

I got to the end of the first chart on Saturday evening, then yesterday we were driving back from my mums and, having been away all weekend, I had some washing and ironing to do yesterday so not much more progress during the day.

Sunday evening was the final chapter of my busy weekend and it wasn’t an anticlimax – I got to meet up with one of my blog friends, Roo who writes her blog at RooKnits.

Roo lives in the Midlands but was coming down to my neck of the woods for a training course so we went to pick her up at High Wycombe train station

We drove to the nearby village where Roo is attending the course and spent an evening in the local pub with her. We had a lovely evening and it was so nice to meet someone in person whom I’ve been chatting with online for a while.

Roo was my partner in the Sockret Pal swap, she wasn’t my original spoiler but they welched and she was swapped in to spoil me and did a wonderful job….coincidentally at the same time as the Sockret Pal swap we both took part in an Afghan Square swap and she was one of the partners who sent me a square in that!

However, when I got home from meeting Roo I did manage to complete the final few rows of MS3 clue 5 and here it is

The theme has been revealed as Swan Lake and this final section is to be a “wing”, the pattern is a feather lace

I love this idea of a non-symmetrical stole with a wing-shaped curving end and can’t wait to see how this finishes!

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Tags: ms3party athletics crystal palace