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!