Monday 22 December 2008

...So This is Christmas?!

On Saturday night...yeah, that's the 20th, we finally got the Christmas decorations down from the loft [attic].
Paulster went up and shouted down the labels on the boxes and I shouted back whether or not that box should come down. I'm sure the neighbours appreciated that happening after 10pm. Oh well.

Anyway, a few hours later, the tree was up, lighted and decorated.
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If you look closely, you'll see that Kenny has taken up residence under the tree for now. Sweet boy!
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As I started putting the ornaments on the tree, I was reminded of the people and places that are special to me that I don't see or chat to nearly enough. Most of my ornaments come from places I've travelled--like my yellow cab from New York City when I travelled there for a weekend with my friend, Sal. Or the ornaments that were given to me during an annual ornament exchange with 3 girlfriends in Texas.
Here are a few pictures of some other special ornaments.
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My chili pepper ornament, purchased in Red River, New Mexico--no telling how many years ago...

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My glass heart ornament. Given to me by the Holstes--parents of my university roommates. They now live in Qatar.

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My handmade Christmas tree ornament. Made by Jake and given to me as a gift the year that I left the US. It goes on my tree every year!

Of course, no English Christmas tree is complete without a Tea Pot ornament.
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Moving on from the tree, are another of my favourite Christmas items. One new addition that was shipped by Aunt Karo just this year...and the large glass Santa that she gave me many years ago.
They have prominent places in the new house now. Next year, they'll look better up against painted walls.
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Of course, the Grinch, the HoHoHo and Mr. Hanky have also been unpacked and placed in their new homes for Christmas.

We're nearly ready for Santa to arrive!

It's a British Tradition- Christmas Style

Christmas in Britian wouldn't be Christmas without the entertainment phenomenon of the Pantomime. This is the slapstick, cartoon of a theatre experience where the leading lady is ALWAYS played by a "Bloke in a Dress" and there's lots of interaction with the audience. For the US-based readers, I can only tell you that the Rocky Horror Picture Show is as close as we get in the US. It's the Rocky Horror Picture Show on steroids.

Our Christmas tradition always entails a trip to Sheffield to take presents to Paulster's sister and family and visit his mother. This year, Auntie M (let's call her) arranged for all of us to go to the Pantomime. It was Aladdin. The story that was adapted by Disney about an evil man who uses Aladdin to find a lamp and access the powers of the Genie to make him an evil sorcerer.
Kind of a heavy story...
Not so much when in the setting of a pantomime.

Here's a picture of the press photos for it...to give you an idea.
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And the writeup of who's in it (it won't mean anything to the US readers):
The iconic Phil Daniels (Eastenders, Quadrophenia and Blur's 'Parklife') plays the role of evil Abanazzar; Kevin Sacre (Jake Dean in Hollyoaks) plays Aladdin; Sheffield's very own comedy legend Bobby Knutt (back by popular demand) plays The Chinese Policeman and Damian Williams (the funniest dame in the country) plays the role of Widow Twankey.

I simply cannot describe the hilarity of the pantomime adequately. It must be experienced. There was one point in the show where I was laughing so hard that I was literally crying. The most hilarious thing for me was the part of the show where the main characters were "looking" for mummies. Sitting on a bench, singing the Monty Python song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"--the mummies would come out of one side of the stage, wander behind the singers and back off again. The job of the crowd is to point and scream, "It's behind you!" Which Paulster's 4 year-old niece did with EXTREME style. Watching her was the funniest part of the entire show.

Another really funny part was the song of the 12 Days of Christmas--which had new lyrics. Including on the first day of Christmas, a bra that was made to hold three. The actors spent the entire time of that song trying to throw each other off.
Like I said, it really must be experienced...I'm so glad that I finally got a chance to see it.
I think it will become a part of my UK Christmas tradition...

Sunday 21 December 2008

Catching Up

This post is literally a catch-up--in late September, two friends/colleagues from the US got to come to London on official business. This was major stop number 1 on their world tour. You may recognise the faces...but the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

We took full advantage of the lovely weather and the visit to see the London sites, laugh and otherwise catch up. JMo and Ricky Bobby were troopers--straight from an overnight flight, I picked them up for a full day of sightseeing.

From looking at the photos, you'd think that all we did is tour the Tower of London...which isn't the case...but if you ONLY had time to do one thing, I'd always recommend seeing the crown jewels. They're just amazing.
Activities of the day included the obligatory trip on the Tube, a ride on the London Eye, a river cruise and a black cab ride. Of course, we also drank a pint in a pub...Mandatory for embracing the culture.

Here's a picture of me and JMo after touring the Tower of London.
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Here's a pic of JMo and a Beefeater before we went in to see the Crown Jewels.
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And here's a picture of me and Ricky Bobby before going into the Tower.
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And here's a shot of Ricky Bobby displaying a coded message! :)
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It was a great day out! Can't wait for you to come back and spend some more time.

10 Years of Drama

The 5th of December was a very special day. Drama turned 10 years old!
We spent the weekend in Bristol, near where the girls live. This was in anticipation of attending a birthday party. But that plan was altered a little bit when Drama said she wanted a Slumber Party for her birthday. So, not really a party format that we could attend.
Instead, we got to see her twice that weekend--once on her actual birthday Friday night and again on Sunday.

Paulster and I met the girls, their mom and one of Drama's friends for dinner at Pizza Express.

She got a pink camera for her birthday, so we'll be editing it at every chance...to make sure the least flattering images don't survive! ;)

Here's a picture of the birthday girl and her proud papa at Pizza Express.
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Saturday was our own day. So we visited the new shopping centre in Bristol, which is a cool indoor/outdoor thing. The shops, like Next, Harvey Nichols, and Debenhams are smaller versions of the London stores.
Here are some holiday decorations outside the shopping centre...very Christmassy.
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Saturday night, we caught up with a friend who lives in town. He's the one we can depend on every time we're there to have dinner and find out how his life's progressed since the last time we saw him. He always gives us plenty of things to discuss over dinner/drinks!

On Sunday, we met the girls and their mom for Sunday lunch. Even though it was cold, the girls enjoyed the swings and slides at the restaurant's playground. The looks on their faces in this shot is pure joy...and it makes me smile.
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Happy Birthday, Drama Girl!
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The Christmas Spirit

There's nothing like a Christmas Market to get you in the Christmas Spirit. The weekend after Thanksgiving, Paulster, Drama, Blondie and I went to Lille, France to a Christmas Market. It was a trip organised by the Sports & Social Club at work. We all boarded a coach [bus] at 7am and drove to Folkstone, near Kent--which is where the Chunnel starts. The coach went onto a train, that then travelled through the Chunnel until we were in France, where we then carried on driving until we reached Lille.
Here's a picture of Paulster and the girls, having gotten off the coach inside the train car that was carrying us through the Chunnel. It was a bit of a surreal experience literally driving onto a train and then going under the English Channel.
Inside the Chunnel

With all the anticipation of Christmas treats and a video of Kung Fu Panda to keep us entertained, we finally made it to Lille and the market.
Here's a shot of Drama and Blondie as we're getting started on the day.
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First order of business...find some mulled wine. Check.
Snacks. Check.
Here's a picture of me, Drama and Blondie having a traditional French treat--the pretzel. ;)
Cyn and the girls eating pretzels

Yeah, that's me, bundled in my pink "Seattle" hoody, hat and gloves. A coat would have been a good idea...too bad I rushed out of the house without it. Goofball.

Then we just walked around to see what we could see and went back to the stalls that had the best stuff!

Here's a stall where the girls picked up a few treats.
Blondie and Drama at the Candy Stall
Like a small version of Willy Wonka's place! Beautifully coloured candies and lollipops!

One of the fun things that we did was ride the big wheel. Twice. Once before the sun went down, and once after. It was COLD--but times, but the view was much more magical at night. The lights of the Christmas Market and city were beautiful. Paulster stayed on the ground--not a fan of the heights and small carriage of the wheel.
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Here's a shot of Paulster and the girls after our last ride on the wheel.
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It was a long, cold day, but definitely a great way to kick off the holiday season!

Sunday 30 November 2008

First Annual Immigrant Dinner (a.k.a. Thanksgiving)

Now that we have a dining room that can hold more than 4 people and several friends that are away from their families during the holiday season, it seemed appropriate to hold the First Annual Immigrant Dinner on Thanksgiving. Even if the walls weren't painted and we had to cobble together the tables and chairs from the random collection of furniture that we have.

The criteria for getting an invitation was that at least one of the couple should be a non-UK citizen. So, we had some folks you know already from the blog: Hachie Gal and Budman--Texans; Banana (Canadian/Croatian) and Sven (Swedish/Croatian); and newcomers to the blog, The Skids (Mrs. Skid is Texan, Mr. Skid is English) and The Falcon & Buffy--both Aussies.
Here's a terribly blurry shot of all of us (except Paulster--the photographer):
Group Shot

I was in charge of the Turkey and Potatoes Supreme--no holiday celebration is complete without Potatoes Supreme...So, my local butcher hooked me up with a 15 pound (weight, not price) turkey--which cooked up nicely thanks to a tip from Nigella Lawson--Domestic Goddess.
The other immigrants brought the rest of the fantastic fare...and in true Thanksgiving Day fashion, there was TONS of great food.

Due to the vet trip (see last posting) I didn't quite have everything together, but thankfully, Mrs. Skid arrived early and helped me unpack the china and crystal and silver and get the table set. And the Budman was travelling back from Iceland that day--he arrived just in time to help his plate with the rest of us!

Here's a picture of the bird halfway through carving.
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Thanks to having double ovens, we were able to get everything warmed so that we could eat on schedule. It was imperative to eat in enough time to watch the Dallas Cowboys stomp the Seattle Seahawks! How 'bout them Cowboys!!!

The Falcon was in charge of the playlist and it was wonderfully entertaining--especially the track with The Falcon himself on vocals. Great songs in the background of the evening chatter.

A Thanksgiving Day spread isn't complete without an array of desserts. Of course, the Pumpkin Pie. Hachie Gal brought the ingredients and I made the crust (thanks to Ouidie's tutoring when I was young). The Falcon made his famous Rum Cake--beautiful and tasty. And Banana made Raspberry and Blueberry Blondies and a Canadian dessert bar whose name escapes me...special multi-cultural treats topped off our feasts.

Here's a shot of the dessert table.
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As a stranger in this country, I am truly thankful to have such a great group of friends to share a special day. And I'm not sure we'll ever know the meaning of 6 lemons in a line.

Friday 28 November 2008

Our first CAT-Astrophe

Well, I certainly hoped it would be a long while into cat-ownership before I had my first "emergency" vet experience. Not to be.
On Thursday, in addition to having a client meeting this morning and preparing for the 1st Annual Immigrant Dinner in London (that's Thanksgiving Day dinner to my friends based in America)...I got to take Sulley (the older fluffy one) to the vet.

I was horrified the night before at 11pm when I called Sulley into the house and he came...slowly, limping. I picked him up and saw some blood on his chest. He had multiple puncture wounds--presumably from getting bitten by another cat and his poor leg was very sore.
He lurked around that night and was in obvious pain--and grouchy. He didn't want anyone touching him. The next morning, Paulster researched vets on the web while I was in my client meeting. He made Sulley an appointment for later than afternoon. Dr. Katie was very nice and checked out the damage done by apparent fighting, as Sulley comes to grips with his pecking order in the neighborhood.

He got two shots--one for pain and one was an antibiotic. Later that night at the Immigrant Dinner (more on that later), he was back to himself, mingling with the crowd.
We go back to see Dr. Katie on Monday for a checkup--but it's clear that he's out of the woods.
Can't wait for the next one...[note sarcasm].

Here's a picture of Sulley from a few days earlier, as he was getting used to his new back garden [yard].
Sulley's first day outside

Friday 14 November 2008

Heaven

Yesterday, I went to heaven. Costco. The warehouse store that is like a super-sized version of Target—my favourite store in the world. Fantastic.

Going to the warehouse store was a regular occurrence when I lived in Texas—if not a social event. My friend Rox and I used to go at lunchtime for a little shopping and have a slice of pizza!
In Texas, I had plenty of space to store 48 rolls of toilet paper and 32 rolls of paper towels [kitchen roll].
In Richmond, there simply wasn’t space for all that stuff—so I had not stepped foot in a Costco (or equivalent) in the UK in almost 4 years!

Sure, when I visited Texas or California, I’d take a trip in and stock up on monster-sized bottle of Ibuprofen or Flintstones vitamins—but never in the UK have I had enough toilet paper in stock to keep Moquitos’ fear of running out at bay. Maybe now, Moquitos and LB1 can come for a visit! ;)

The trip was really precipitated by the arrival of Kenny and Sulley. Eventually, they’ll go outside to do most of their “business”, but we’ll always need the litter box—ergo, kitty litter, in bulk.

And now, we have garage shelves (courtesy of Hachie Gal and Budman--a purchase from Costco in Korea--I believe) and plenty of pantry space! So, I had a meeting close to the Costco in Reading, so after my meeting, I popped in, got my membership and started shopping! I was giddy as I glided around with my oversized basket filling it easily!

We now have approximately 1 ton of washing powder [clothes detergent], 3,000 sheets of Bounce for the dryer, 2 tons of kitty litter (scoop-able, of course), ½ of a cow (actually 4 lovely “Texas-sized” ribeye steaks), and 12 gigantic rolls of paper towels. The boot [trunk] of the Golf was full to bursting!

This time, I stuck to my list and still managed to spend a small fortune. But I’m sure there will be a time when I go crazy and impulse buy. I guess that’s the danger of going to heaven…for those of you who have access to Costco and Sam’s regularly—count your blessings!

Sunday 9 November 2008

Trick or Treat--UK Style

Last weekend was Halloween and we had Drama and Blondie for 6 days over their mid-term break. We went to Sheffield over the weekend to see Paulster's family. The girls got to go Trick or Treating with their cousins.
Here's a picture of the whole motley crew! Drama and Cousin A were devils--obviously. And Blondie and Suzie Q were witches.
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For me, watching the UK style of Trick or Treating was amusing. This is clearly a society that has picked up the activity and tried to make it a tradition from watching films and TV from the US, without the benefit of the protocol that underlies it.

In the US, we'd only go houses that had the lights on--clearly, if the lights aren't on, then no one there wants to participate. The kids here don't know that, so even though we'd turned off the lights at Nanny's house and people were still ringing the doorbell all night.
And here, when the kids would go to a house that was lighted, thinking someone in there had candy for them, sometimes, there'd be no answer. Then, the kids would spot someone moving in the house and want to keep ringing the doorbell until someone answered. It was like calling off a pack of wolves! :)
And it wasn't the orderly procession through the neighbourhood from one lighted house to another...Instead, we went from one of Cousin A's friend's houses to the next.

We went to Sheffield and back on the train. Here are a few pictures of us goofing around with chocolate eyeballs on the train ride home.
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It was a good weekend of fun and family.

Saturday 8 November 2008

Our Expanding Family...Introducing...

Sulley and Kenny.
Paulster and I decided that our lives (and home) have stabilised enough to add a couple of new members to our family--of the feline variety. We surfed the web and found a cat rescue place that had 2 that we liked the looks of.

We contacted the rescue and they came out for a home visit--to make sure we weren't axe murderers, I guess. Really they were checking things like, do we live too close to a railway line or busy road, or is there a pack of Rottweilers roaming the nearby gardens [yards] that would want to pull our kitties to bits.

We then planned the day of adoption. On a day when the Drama and Blondie were visiting during their mid-term break, we planned for the rescue lady to bring the new members of our family to the local train station. We kept it a secret from the girls and boy were they surprised! (and happy).

We took both of the cats home and started getting them used to each other and to us.
Here's a picture of Sulley.

Sulley in window

He's 7 years old and a Persian-cross breed. His former owners are immigrating to Canada and have a new baby, so I guess he was relegated to a lower social standing as a result...He was named Snoopy--but who wants a cat that's named after a dog? Not me. So I chose to name him after the Monsters, Inc. character--James P. Sullivan "Sulley"--the big blue hairy Chief Scarer--voiced by John Goodman.
To me, it seemed like a good transitional name from Snoopy to Sulley--same length and beginning and ending letters/sounds--he seems to be getting used to it.

And here's a picture of Kenny and his proud Dad. He's a 6 month-old kitten and full of energy! He's very lovable and snuggly. His original name was Conker--which I think in the US we call a horse chestnut. He was a stray and a vet in East London took him in for re-homing. They snipped and chipped him and now he's ours!

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Paulster named him "Kenny", after Kenny Dalglish, "the greatest footballer to ever play for Liverpool", he says. Click his name to get a bio on Kenny's namesake.

Sulley is getting to where he tolerates Kenny and is friendly with us. I woke up the first morning to sweet kitty kisses from Sulley.

Here's a picture of them the first night, with Sulley looking down from his perch on the window sill while Kenny eats his food. I guess you can always count on the little brother to be annoying!

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4 days later, they're sharing another window sill in the guest bedroom. That lasts until Kenny decides he wants to play and bugs Sulley. Which usually results in a nice hiss and swat from big brother.

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And here's Kenny tasting a house plant, whilst sitting on top of the TV. Yeah, we'll have to figure out which (if any) of the houseplants are poisonous to the felines and take action accordingly. Sooner rather than later, I'd say!

Kenny Eating Plant

And one of him relaxing under the coffee table. You can see he's not camera shy in the least!

Kenny under table

We're really happy to have some furry friends to share our home! Wish us luck, we're a bit rusty at the having pets thing...

Saturday 25 October 2008

Trouble Comes in Threes

To say that the house has had some issues lately might be understating it. I must mention that prior to the hole in the kitchen ceiling event, we had clogged drains. This was a clog caused somewhere in the neighbourhood that managed to work it's way up to our house. We have this pit/chamber in the garage--which is at the front of the house. It filled up and oozed over, so that the foot of the garage and the driveway were not smelling too fresh. Super YUK! Thankfully, the builders that did all of the work on the house are kind enough to be "on call" for us and came that very day and unclogged it. It wasn't a problem that they caused--but they solved it for us anyway. Sometimes, playing the dumb card is a great thing...

Anyway, that was event number 1 (even though it smelled like number 2), the kitchen leak was event number 2--and now, we've had...you guessed it--event number 3.
Our house is called a semi-detached--which means that we share a common wall with our neighbours. They moved in about a month after we did and have started to do some renovation of their own. Namely, knocking down chimney breasts that are on the commmon wall.
Whilst a noisy activity, it didn't become a problem until Sunday--when one swing of the sledgehammer on the opposite wall pushed a brick through a smidge--which broke out a section of the plaster on our dining room wall.

Thankfully (I guess), we have not painted our dining room or done anything in the way of decorating in there. A hole about as big as a dinner plate was punched out of the wall and the beautiful plasterwork is now crumbled. The walls that our plasterer did are as smooth as silk.

By Friday, the neighbour's plasterer had come over to start the repair. It will be finished on Monday or Tuesday. Paulster was home on Friday when the plasterer came over to see the damage and get a game plan for repair. The plasterer commented what a nice job the plaster was--to which Paulster replied--"I'm sure you can match it". He'd better--or it'll get redone. GGGRRRR!

I'll post pictures of the damage and repair next week. I'm just sure this is the end of our house issues for a while--don't they say trouble comes in threes?

Thursday 16 October 2008

My Lovely, Lovely Kitchen

...has a giant hole in the ceiling!!!
Why?
Because water was dripping out of one of the lights. How safe is that?!
Not very.

The pipe coming out of the radiator in the bathroom (located directly above the kitchen) had a leak. So, even when the radiators were not on (heating the house) it was slowly leaking out--and when the radiators were on--it was flooding out and collecting in the ceiling until it built up enough to start pouring out of the light.

Here's what it looks like now:
hole in my kitchen

Unfortunately for me, it was 1am and I was fast asleep when Paulster decided it was necessary to wake me and let me know of our little problem. I would have happily waited until the morning to discover that he'd taken down the light and found the leak. Instead, I got to participate! Yippee!

The next day, the builders came out and cut the giant hole so that we could put a bucket under it until the plumbers could come sort it out.

So today, the plumbers were here for about 30 minutes and fixed us right up.
After the plaster dries up a bit, the builders will be back to patch up the ceiling.
And then we'll repaint.
UGH!

Oh well. I could have been so much worse.

Friday 10 October 2008

And Bingo was his name-o

Just a short post on the random social activity of the week...playing Bingo.
On Thursday night, Paulster and I went with some of our colleagues/friends to play bingo. It's not just a little game in the town hall with some Grannies and Grandpas. This was SERIOUS bingo playing. A giant hall with tables and electronic screens.

We lowered the average age a bit by entering the game. I'd say it probably hovered somewhere in the range of 70 before we strolled in.

We played something like 12 games and it was intense. They called the numbers at breakneck speed and some of our fellow bingo-ers didn't appreciate that we found the pace hilariously funny.

It was good entertainment. One of our crew won some £--and we definitely had a good time!
Who knows, maybe we'll put Bingo Night on the rotation...

Tuesday 7 October 2008

Repeat after me, "I am a Domestic Goddess"

We've finally started to settle in to the house--how can you tell when we're still surrounded by unpainted walls, uncarpeted floor and cardboard boxes? you ask...

I've started cooking for fun in the kitchen. In my estimation, there's cooking because you can't possibly endure yet another meal out or pizza delivery (and still pay the mortgage) and there's cooking for fun.

This weekend, the girls and I cooked for "fun". Drama helped me make one of our favourites--Macaroni and Cheese. It's an Alton Brown (of the TV cooking show Good Eats) recipe and it so quick and easy--the longest bit of the preparation is grating the cheese. But of course, you can do that while the pasta's cooking. It's a million times better than the BrandX-out-of-a-blue-box Mac & Cheese and you actually know what's in it--because it's made from basic ingredients.

And then for dessert--Blondie helped me make an Apple Crumble. In fairness, she made the crumble part--getting elbow-deep in the pastry mix! All I did is cut up some apples.

Yes, they were apples from the tree. We did a harvest the last time the girls were here and managed somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 apples. What do you do with all those apples? Give 'em away. Paulster and I took 9 dozen apples to the office and they vanished. We have an entire shelf in the garage fridge that is stacked with the rest. In theory, they should keep until Christmas.

Now with the apple crumble made, and a bit of applesauce, I really need to get creative with the apple recipes. Banana has told me about her Struedel recipe--so maybe that will be the next challenge!

The title of the blog is derived from one of my cookbooks, given to me for my birthday by some fantastic friends--Faz and G.

Here's a pic from our days hanging out in Windsor at the Tapas restaurant.
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The cookbook is called, "How to be a Domestic Goddess". It's by Nigella Lawson. She's a curvy, irreverent, licks her fingers as she cooks on TV and is an absolute riot. The book has a gold cover--it's fab. So, tonight, while preparing for a work-related late night conference call, I was noticing about 3 overripe bananas in my Mexican Fruit Bowl...the Domestic Goddess in me immediately sprang into action to make Banana Muffins per Nigella.
I'm sitting here in the kitchen posting this as they're cooling...it certainly makes the kitchen smell lovely.
I'll take them to work and let my colleagues be the judge of how much more practice I'm going to need to truly become a Domestic Goddess.

Monday 6 October 2008

Grillin' & Chillin'

One of the first things I did when I moved into my first place in London was to buy a BBQ grill. It's just an essential household item in my book. So, while watching the hooha of Charles and Camilla getting married on TV, I sat and assembled my BBQ grill in my living room. Then it occurred to me that I didn't measure to see if it would go out the door to the back garden [yard]. It did! Whew!

For three and a half years, it served me well. Cranking up every time I needed a BBQ fix. Despite being religiously covered, it didn't fare too badly in the acid rain of the Heathrow flight path and the damp conditions it was regularly subjected to...but let's just say--it's destined for more casual use than I am prepared to give.

Coincidentally, Blondie had a birthday coming up and requested that instead of the usual bowling or playhouse--she wanted a BBQ party at home with her friends. Your wish is my command! So, after consulting with Blondie's mom, Paulster and I packed up the "old" BBQ and trucked to the West with it. Largely entact, we set it up in Blondie & Drama's back garden and got to cooking!

The kids were delighted with the sausages and burgers that came off the grill--and especially pleased to see that when the 2nd set of burgers got flipped, a tremendous flame shot up from the BBQ. Calm, cool and collected as ever, I closed the lid--which made ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE!
So, instead of calling out the Fire Brigade [Department], I just turned the gas off and let it subside. Disaster averted, thankfully.

As I mentioned, that was a bit of hardcore use, for which, this poor BBQ just ain't fit for anymore. A couple of steaks or burgers here and there is fine...but an hour of straight heat to cook 20 burgers and 24 sausages...not so much...

Nothing like a smoke cloud to aid the Global Warming...
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Adding to the excitement with the grill, there was a pinata--that all the kids enjoyed beating the heck out of--and a chocolate fountain. Yum! So, our little Blondie is now a year older and had exactly the party that she wanted.

Here's a pic of Blondie beating the H-E-double-hockey-sticks out of the fairy pinata.
Blondie beats the Fairy

Fast forward a couple of weeks and once again, in the living room, I assembled my new Weber BBQ grill. It's a work of art. It took me about 10 episodes of the Sopranos (from my box set of the complete series!) and a little creativity to assemble the huge thing myself (Paulster and the kids were away in Sheffield for the weekend).

After several weeks of looking at it sitting in the dining room (it's not going to succumb to the same evil forces as the "old" grill)--I finally wheeled it out and cranked it up. Here's an action shot!

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Two lovely ribeyes later...perfection.

A Nice Surprise

In the last week, we've had quite the variance in weather here in London. From torrential downpours to beautiful sunshine...

While that's not much of a surprise, the fact that at the end of September, after not much of a summer, the weather was so beautiful that we could have lunch outside on our patio was quite a surprise and treat!

I didn't break out the new BBQ grill for this event, but I did put a leg of lamb on to roast and make a salad and some mashed potatoes. The other ladies did their share, Banana brought Apple Struedel--made with apples from our garden (will post on the fall apple harvest soon), and Hatchie Gal brought a wonderful green bean casserole. Nothing says "Southern Girl" quite like a green bean casserole!!!

Admittedly, there was a bit of difficulty judging when the lamb was ready--but we had blue cheese dip and crackers to tide us over. And the boys were well-engrossed in the Sunday football--it's not just an NFL tradition! ;)

The sunshine held out for us, even long enough for us to stroll around the garden in a pack, with Sven and Hatchie Gal identifying the foliage for me.

Lunch in Ruislip

For me, that afternoon represented EXACTLY why I wanted a house of my own--for good friends to gather.

Saturday 20 September 2008

11th Time's a Charm

Back to the house stuff for a moment if I may.

We (make no mistake, that's a "Royal" WE) have been agonising over the paint colour that will grace the living room, dining room and our bedroom since we moved in.
Choosing the colours for the kitchen and bathroom and the girls' rooms were not particularly burdensome. Checked out a few colours and the right ones just stuck...
Sexy Pink, Lemon Pie, Willow Tree, etc. just seemed to work. I guess because they are bolder colours and isolated to one room made it easier. I could have been happy with at least four of them...but Paulster and I couldn't agree until now.

Somehow, getting the right shade of tan/brown/beige is as difficult as describing it. A bit like Goldilocks trying to find the right porridge [oatmeal] or the right bed. Each sample was either too dark, too pink, too grey, or too yellow.

Here's a picture of the wall where we've been comparing the samples:
Testing Paint

The red and purple colours will be "feature walls"--so the basic colour needs to complement them.

Finally, after eleven. COUNT THEM E-L-E-V-E-N testers, we found a winner. It's called Chateau--which will give you no concept of the colour it actually is.
PaintPots

So, I guess this means that we no longer have any excuses for NOT getting on with the painting...

Viva Espana

The England team is playing the first round of World Cup 2010 qualifying matches. Some are home games (a few tube stops away from us at Wembley Stadium), some obviously, are away games. We went to our first away game--that was technically--away for both teams, but I guess proximity was counting towards the "home" team of Andorra.

Andorra is a tiny little country nestled in between France and Spain, rather than the grandmother character on Bewitched (her name was Endora--for the record).

Anyway, we were in the crowd at the game in the Barcelona Olympic Stadium that was built for the 1992 Summer Olympics hosted in the city. We got to see Joe Cole score two goals in the first 4 minutes of the second half to win the game (finally). Also playing were David Beckham, John Terry and other stars of the game. It was a bit more intimate of a setting than Wembley--it's a much smaller stadium.

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England fans (and football [soccer] fans in general) have rightfully earned the hooligan reputation. I've never been around that many bald-headed, snaggle-toothed, multi-tattooed screaming middle-aged men in my life. One of them was so passionate about the poor performance of the team, I was certain that he was going to have a stroke with all the yelling!

After the game, we took in some sights of the city. The fountains near the Olympic Stadium and National Gallery were going with lights and music.

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We took a few days off for a mini-holiday around the game weekend. We stayed in a beach resort at the Costa Brava. I can say that it was very much the stereotypical "Brits Abroad" type place--for the Americans, think...spring break in Cancun--for forty-year-olds. So, not a place I need to go back anytime soon, but it sure did make for entertaining people watching and amusement.
To give you a clue, there were two "races" as evening entertainment one night. The first was seeing how many "fags" [cigarettes] the contestants could collect from the other holidaymakers, the second was for the women contestants to collect 8 sets of trousers [pants] from male holidaymakers. Classy.

Here's a shot of the beach.
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What can I say? Except, I was warned (thanks, Stef) and...it was a cheap "holiday".

Monday 8 September 2008

First Harvest

Well, a couple weekends ago, we decided that the apples in the trees were ready to eat. The larger tree near the house has huge green apples on it--they're "cooking apples", meaning that they're otherwise too tart to just eat, so you've got to cook them first. This is not a concept I was familiar with coming from the US...

The second tree is at the bottom of the garden [yard]. It's apples are some variety, but we haven't a clue...maybe Gala? They're turning red and clearly, ready for eating! I pulled one of them off the tree, washed it and bit in---Yummy!

So, having a couple of little monkeys that like to climb trees around that day, we sent them up to weed out the yucky apples and pick the ripe ones.
Here's Drama in the "Cooking Apple" tree.
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And can you spot the blonde monkey in this tree?
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And here's a view of the spoiled apples--these are ones that have been half eaten by squirrels (who knew they like apples?), slugs, and other creepy crawlies. The recycling people picked these up for the giant compost heap that the council runs.
The Spoils

I do have a compost bin in the garden area of my garden, but I figured that too many apples wasn't good for it...No real reason for my conclusion, except that I figured the composting would be better if there was a variety of things in there. That maybe the apple compost would make it too acidic? Feel free to post a comment if you have any compost-knowledge to share!

Anyway, we ate our fill of apples and have given lots away to colleagues. I haven't yet had time to bake anything with the apples in it, but I will!
I did bake some white chocolate/macadamia nut cookies the other night. Somehow that seemed infinitely easier than coring and peeling tons of apples before the cooking could even commence... The cookies were really good (if I do say so myself)--and I'm happy to report that my new oven bakes nice and evenly!

I've also re-started my Able & Cole Organic Food delivery now that we're nearly settled in the new house. They bring me a "mixed" box of organic fruit and veg from the UK every week. I started it a long while ago in Richmond, so that I could get used to trying new vegetables and stuff that I just didn't really know about eating...like Leeks, Fennel, Jerusalem Artichokes, etc. It's also been a good way to ensure that we're eating fresh vegetables and not getting in a food rut.
Between the Able & Cole delivery and the apples, we have lots of good fruit at all times!
So, in an attempt to ensure more fruit/veg is eaten than goes into the compost bin, I bought a juicer. I haven't used it yet...but certainly will soon. The only time I ever have used a juicer in the past is at my sister's house (let's call her Lamb--that was my Granny's nickname for her) in California. She had monster orange trees in her yard (and other types of trees as well), so the novelty of getting the ladder out to pick oranges and juice them wasn't lost on me when I visited!
My juicer came with a book of recipes and other tips, so I'm looking forward to using it!