HOME ALONE

Today Christian has gone off to Headingley in Leeds with about 20 of the boys from work to "watch the cricket", as it is lashing it down, I don't expect much cricket will be watched but I do expect much beer will be consumed!
Anyway, this means that Alice and I are having a lovely girlie day. We have just been playing at "doing hair" and we are about to have a brunch carpet picnic of orange juice and danishes. For this afternoon, we have the best planned - snuggling on the sofa with a pizza, Maltesers and "The Sound of Music" dvd. Oh yes!! Boys are all well and good and I do believe they have their place in a family! but you must admit, daughters are the best gift to any mother!!

THAT'S AMAZING!

I have just been to my Mum's to re-pot Philli the Chilli (a chilli plant given to me by Phil). She has this amazing compost that I have to tell everyone & anyone about. You see it's dried, it comes in bricks, about half the size of a house brick and you put it in a bucket, add about 3 litres of water and watch! It just grows and turns into a bucket full on normal compost. I know I probably don't get out nearly enough but it was great - it just grew and grew! I'd better go now, some paint needs me to watch it dry!

GREAT BRITISH MENU

I don't know if you've been watching it, but the votes have been counted and the results are in. We now know the 2007 menu.
Starter - Slow Poached Egg, Pea Sorbet & Ham.
Fish Course - Poached Salmon with Duck Egg on Wheaten Toast.
Main Course - Rabbit & Crayfish Stargazy Pie with Mushy Peas.
Pudding - Perry Jelly & Summer Fruits with Elderflower Ice-Cream.

Yummy! But why as I so bothered? Well sod the fact that it was created for a banquet at the British Embassy in Paris for a load of French foodie big-wigs, yes bugger that! It's because Dianne (mother-in-law) & I have a table booked at The Great British Menu Restaurant at the Good Food Show on the 14th June!! And now we know what we'll be eating! We are going to order a 2006 and a 2007 full 4 course meal and share them, so we can try everything - what a good idea!

FISH, CHIPS & MUSHY PEAS ...

...And the best part of 11 bottles of wine(!), were consumed on Friday night by Mum, Dianne, David, Christian and myself. As you can imagine yesterday was a complete write off! We spent the day in front of the TV, drinking vast amounts of diet Coke and eating Rustlers microwaveable lip & hoof burgers. It was worth though, we had had a great time, and it goes without saying that I'm never drinking again, again!! Here's the menu.

Canapes:
Chorizo Bites, Asparagus & Cream Cheese Rolls and Union Square Cafe Bar Nuts.

Starter:
Asparagus & Fried Halloumi Salad with Chilli Dressing.

Main Course:
Salmon Fillets with Crispy Bacon Bits, Minted Mushy Peas, Crushed Jersey Royal Potatoes, Baked Carrots with Cumin, Thyme, Butter & Pouilly Fume and Caper Sauce.

Pudding:
Ginger Syllabub with Ginger Biscuits.

Cheese:
Saint Agur, Cambazola, Mrs Bell's Blue, Hartington Stilton, Oak Smoked Cheddar & Somersby with Crackers & Grapes.

It was all very lovely, even if I do say so myself! Good food, good company & far too much wine, I can't think of a better way to spend an evening and I'm sure my Dad would have agreed.

DAD'S ANNIVERSARY

Today, it is 5 years since my Dad died. He had lung cancer. Yes, he was a smoker but as I asked him, "if you could go back & change things, would you not smoke?" his reply was "no, I loved every single fag I smoked!!" Fair enough!

I really miss him, as does Christian - they had become whiskey drinking partners. But we are constantly laughing about the string of bullshit he fed me as a child. At 34 I am still finding out that half the things in life I know, are complete bollocks (embarrassingly so)!!

1. Apparently, when the lights flicker in the evening, it's NOT the guy from the day shift at the power station going home & the night shift guy flicking their switches to change generators!

2. If there's a thunderstorm, you CAN watch TV without the risk of lightning hitting the aerial, coming through the TV screen & frying you whilst sitting on the sofa!

3. When someone is putting petrol in, you DON'T have to sit perfectly still, or the petrol will splash up out of the car & go down your Dad's leg!

4. If you try & unpick your belly button, your bottom WON'T fall off! (I did work that one out a while ago)

5. If you touch broken egg shells, you WON'T catch warts!

6. If you eat spoonfuls of sugar, you WON'T get worms!

I keep finding these out, even now - much to Christian's amusement!
Tonight we are having a dinner party in his honor, well Mum & Christian's parents are coming for a meal & ridiculous amounts of wine! We're having one of Dad's favourites - fish, chips & peas! but not from a chip shop - it's a la Nigella et Victoria!! Very fancy.

VERY SMUG

Christian & I were playing Wii Bowling last night. Nintendo Wii is his latest toy, he loves computer games & in our house he never loses (mind you he usually only plays small boys - my nephew 12 & my cousin's son 14). Until last night! With my first ever game I whipped his sorry ass! He scored his highest score yet & still I won. "It was a fluke"he says "better make it best of 3", I won again! "best of 5?" there was no point, we left it at 3. As I said, very smug!!

I'M HERE, I MADE IT!

Welcome one & all to my new blog, I've been meaning to do this for ages, so here I am.
I love food, cooking, shopping everything really (apart from washing up) & as cakes are my current passion, I will be using this site to document them. I will probably, mainly just ramble on about foodie nonsense, like going to the BBC Good Food Show with my mother-in-law in June, inventing recipes & my favourite moan - being too fat!!
Anyway, this is me, I'm here, check me out!