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.
17072008 028

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...
GrillMeister

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!

GrillMeister

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.