Meal planning Monday (sort of): 15th April 2019

Meant to post this yesterday and, er, failed.  But we carry on regardless!  It's just a shame that meal planning Tuesday doesn't have such a pleasingly alliterative quality.

Anyhoo, how are you dearest reader?  I hope this finds you well.  We had a bit of drama at the weekend when the cat decided to either have a midlife crisis or start her bid for the Best Actress statuette at next year's Oscars.  It culminated in her being frogmarched to the vet who announced that she has slightly dodgy kneecaps.  As my mother said, one never thinks about cats having knees.  She now appears thoroughly pissed off with both us and life in general.

Of couse, she can express such emotions by leaving us little turd shaped indications of her displeasure in the hall.  The rest of us have to keep soldiering on despite the fact that a) Brexit, or the lack thereof, is a constant source of stress (modern day politics is NOT good for those of us with higher than normal anxiety levels), b) work is unrelenting and c) no lottery win has yet been forthcoming.  I mean, I'd take the millionaire's raffle, I really would.  I doubt that I could quit work for a million pounds but I could definitely buy a nice handbag and, as we all know, a nice handbag always helps.

In the midst of all this, of course, there are people going through real crises.  Peridot, if you happen to read this - still thinking of you and sending much love to you both through the blogosphere.

So to meal planning!  It was actually our anniversary on Sunday - not our wedding anniversary but 15 years to the day since we first met.  Our first date was in a not-particularly-great pub in York.  This year, we celebrated with steak which has become our go-to treat meal ever since we discovered reverse searing.  About halfway through said steak, we realised that one would comfortably have done both of us.  And so, last night, the rest of it was thinly sliced and served in a sandwich with caramelised onion mayonaise, mustard, and lightly dressed leaves.  Elsewhere this week...

Tuesday: split pea and ham soup

Wednesday: pan roasted chicken breast with sweetcorn puree and a potato and chorizo gratin

Thursday: D (rather than Charles) is in charge and he is undertaking to produce a spring veg risotto

Friday: creamy salmon pasta (opting for fish like the good lapsed Catholics that we are)

Saturday: homemade pizza.  Not sure what form this will take as of yet.

Sunday: a special Easter meal of roasted belly pork, lightly pickled rhubarb, kale with cream and bacon and caraway roasted potatoes.  There may well be pudding.  And even a starter.  And I shall spend the entire day in clean pyjamas.  Hurrah!

A pre-Christmas catch up

I cannot believe that Christmas is almost upon us and I, for one, am nowhere near prepared.  How goes it for you, dearest readers?

Most of our Christmas dinner preparation is underway, thanks to D.  The duck legs are sitting quietly in a box of fat in the fridge, the braised red cabbage and clementine ice cream are in the outdoor freezer alongside a couple of pots of turkey curry to enjoy in the fuggy period between Boxing Day and New Year.  And this weekend, I will be turning my attention to Christmas crumble: there will be a layer of apple, a layer of mincemeat and then a crumble topping flavoured with orange zest, cinnamon and chopped nuts. 

Dieting quietly fell off the agenda a good while ago so at the moment I'm all about the damage control which is not easy in an office when there is a permanent supply of Christmas snack foods.  My team actually held a mince pie bake off last week.  I went off piste and submitted a batch of mince pie brownies, which I thought were fairly epic, but they were proved a gamble too far and failed to win on the basis that they were not mince pie-ey enough.  My genius is clearly not appreciated.

Burgeoning waistline aside, I must admit that I have struggled to get into the spirit of things so far this year.  I always used to adore Christmas but now wonder if I'm just getting a little bit too old to buy in to the magic in the same way that I always used to.  Maybe not having children means that you just lose that sense of wonder.  Or maybe the fact that Bella Italia have seen fit to put Christmas Dinner lasagne on their set menu this year (I don't like to swear on this blog but WTAF?) has just made me feel that everything has gone a little bit too far.

Anyway, I hope to be on again at some point to run through my dishes of the year (I'll bet that'll have everyone on the edge of their seats for the forseeable) but in the meantime, I leave you with a picture of my beloved Minx being long suffering in a Christmas scrunchie - looking at which makes me think that perhaps I can still muster a little bit of festive wonder...

A post weigh-in post

Well, I am surely glad that I did write my pre weigh-in post before I went to the meeting. Because the scales were not kind. In fact, they were positively bitchy, informing me that I had managed to gain a pound over the course of the last week.

I’m no stranger to gains – they’re a fact of life, and I try to be sanguine about them but, oh! This stung quite a lot. Such that I could actually feel my eyes get hot and prickly when I stepped off, even while I was cheerfully telling the leader that I wouldn’t let this put me off and would give it another good go this week. Then I went to the meeting shop and spent £7 on over-processed WW own products that are full of the type of sugar replacements that people with delicate tummies should probably avoid.

But while waiting for the meeting to start, I actually sat and read my own post and it did make me feel a lot better. So what if the scales are taking a while to catch up? I know, in my heart of hearts, that I did my very best this week, that I made good decisions, and that I took proper care of myself. Hopefully, good results will follow (said with gritted teeth).

In other news, someone emailed me a few weeks ago to say that this blog had been listed as one of the Top 5 UK Weight Watchers Blogs and Websites in 2018. I’m not sure how many UK Weight Watchers Blogs there are (probably 5), and I’m not quite sure that this has actually been a Weight Watchers blog for a while but hey! We take our victories where we can. And the thumbnail of Minx they have used is one of my favourites so it’s worth a click just to admire her.

TWTWTW: Winter is coming

It appears to be one of the depressing truths about getting older that time is permanently getting away from you.  I am sure that when I was a child, a single weekend would stretch out for days, summer lasted pretty much forever and a year was a lifetime.  And now, at the grand old age of thirty-ouch the whole play reel has sped up to an alarming degree.  I don't know how it can possibly be nearly the end of October, and 2017 approaching its final throes. 

I mean, I understand logically that we must be nearly into November, and thus practically at Christmas, because I made my Bonfire Night parkin today.  It was my second attempt, I am very sorry to say, the first being an abject lesson in trusting my cooking instincts.  Basically, we have an absolute beast of an oven and always have to reduce both cooking temperatures and times whenever we make anything to ensure that it isn't overdone; even bearing this in mind, I still managed to over bake my first parkin until it resembled nothing so much as a big, spicy HobNob biscuit.  Nothing wrong with the flavour, and, if you're happy to lose a few teeth, perfectly edible.  But not squishy, sticky parkin.  For those unfamiliar with this particular bake, I'll stick the recipe up next week.  The key thing to remember is that if it looks ready, smells ready and is only slightly springy to the touch DO NOT PUT IT BACK IN THE OVEN.  Even if you've only baked it for half the specified time.

I've titled the post, winter is coming, but last night's weather - full on wind and rain screeching and battering at the windows - made me think that it is pretty much here.  It was a perfect night to be inside, with all the sparkly loveliness of Strictly on the TV and a fire blazing in the log burning stove.  That stove, which we had fitted back in early summer, finally seeing off the Gawdawful 70s-style gas fire monstrosity, has proved to be our most worthwhile purchase of the year.  It was the first real stamp we put on this house after we bought it from our landlord and it's fabulous. Every home should have one, plus a cat to stare wistfully into the flames.  Example:

I say wistful.  That particular emotion might be slightly beyond her but she does a good impression, no?

In addition to the fire, we were also warmed on the inside by the delicious Rafi's curry that we had for supper (do you see how elegantly I segue into food chat?  Seamless!)  It had been quite a few years since we'd used one of their curry packs, but, now they have a permanent presence in Kirkgate market I can see us buying them much more regularly.  The Xacutti curry, which we made with chicken thighs, red peppers and onion, had a wonderfully rich, almost smoky quality to it.  We both agreed that we could have taken more heat, so, if we repurchase will request the mix be made hot rather than medium.  Served with nothing by rice and a supermarket naan bread it was a perfect Saturday supper.

No news is no news

Not quite sure what happened there but I appear to have blinked and found myself in October.

When I sat down to write this, I tried to figure out why I sometimes feel that I have less to say nowadays.  I'm certainly not eating or cooking less.  I've realised that one key difference is that I am a much more confident cook than when I started blogging seven (seven!) years ago.  Although we still meal plan, the plan tends to be more fluid.  Both of us abhor food waste and will often tweak things to a greater or lesser extent in order to accommodate leftovers, or ingredients that look set to lapse from sadness to inedible at any given moment.  Some of the nicest meals that we have eaten in the last few week have been just thrown together.  And I always feel a bit of a cheat, blogging a dish if it is full of splashes and dashes rather than properly measured ingredients.  But I'm not sure why - Nigel Slater, a food writer whose prose I adore even if I do find his TV persona a little grating, has built an entire bloody career on such a methodology.

So, I am going to try and be better about putting up posts that just describe a successful coming together of ingredients.  Something less formal than a recipe, just a vignette.

Of course, the ability to freestyle more is almost certainly a result of me not following any sort of formalised diet plan.  I think the last time that I was a paying member of Weight Watchers was a good eighteen months to two years ago (I'm sure that a quick trawl back through the archives could tell me if I really cared to know).  Interestingly, I am certainly no bigger for forsaking my membership and probably a little smaller thanks to some initial success on 5:2.  But, as every catch up post that I have done recently seems to repeat, after a good couple of months I seem to have spent the rest of the year trying to reclaim the 5:2 mojo and failing, for various reasons.  Sigh.

Still, I am in a good mood today and unwilling to get too introspective about things.  It's been a beautifully calm weekend of reading, baking and Strictlying.  There's a pork belly joint being pressed on the dining room table ready to be served with braised lentils and a punchy caper sauce.  The cat is chasing a fly. Life is full of quiet, Sunday pleasures.

Very Sunday

TWTWTW: Lazy, hazy, crazy

Well, we haven't done a that was the week that was post for a while, which means that the blog has been lacking in cute cat pictures, which will never do.

La Minx remains as beautiful and capricious as ever, as is the way with felines.  She, at best, tolerates and, at worst, cordially dislikes D despite our ongoing efforts but he forgives her because she is beautiful and has the loudest purr ever to emanate from a little cat.

Now, tell me, where on Earth has the summer gone?  I'm sure we had a few nice days back there in what - May?  June?  But the last few weeks have been terrible!  As regular readers will know, I am not a fan of the heat but the lack of blue skies and the constant threat of rain is becoming slightly depressing.  I feel like I should be talking about barbecues and summer salads but it's really more weather for stews.

Still, miserable weather notwithstanding, we managed to drag ourselves out this week when we went to a really fun Sipsmith gin event at Shear's Yard this week, which I will write about in more detail in another post; I was shocked to find that it has been two and a half years since we last went to that fine establishment (I wrote about it here).  Sadly, both time and money preclude us from visiting such local gems as often as we would both like - and given the continued pressures on independent establishments it's a real shame not to support them more.  Leeds recently lost The Black Swan which was an absolutely wonderful gastro-ish pub that is also mentioned in the above post which goes to show that even places that do everything right are at risk.

We had a few nights midweek where we were a bit lax about cooking for various reasons, but things have picked up this weekend, and for brunch this morning I finally got around to making shakshuka (pictured below with toasted, buttered brioche).

It's been on my "dishes I should really try" list for AGES and, guess what?  It really is worth trying!  I followed Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe, here because I liked the fact that it kept things pretty simple (I mean, in terms of additions to the stewed tomato and pepper mix.)  I can see how adding a garnish of feta, or herbed yoghurt or cooking some chorizo or something in with the vegetables would work well, but loved it just as it was.  It's great for brunch because you can make the sauce the day before (which probably improves the flavour anyway) and then just cook the eggs in the morning.  Although I have to say this: his recipe suggests that you make the sauce then divide it between four pans before cooking with the eggs.  This sounds like a lot of washing up to me.  I cooked the vegetables in a large, shallow, stove-top casserole dish and just broke the eggs into that.  Much simpler.

And breathe...

I couldn't bear to have that last post up at the top of the feed anymore, so, here. We haven't had an obligatory cute cat picture in a while.

As guard cats go, she's not the greatest. But did you ever see a more beautiful feline?*

* I may be biased.

Seven sleeps

I'm braising red cabbage at the moment, which is filling the house with a very (for me) Christmassy scent. I make this recipe pretty much every year - unadulterated, unchanged and unfailingly good. It also has the virtue of improving with age (much like me) so preparing it in advance is practically mandatory.

Are you sorted for your Christmas dinner yet? We are on our own this year so keeping things easy, yummy and slightly non traditional. Smoked salmon roulade on spelt bread to start followed by confit duck legs with mash and braised red cabbage - with cold turkey, gammon and sausagemeat loaf if anyone requires additional protein. Cheese, of course. And, finally, Christmas pudding ice cream - a recipe that I must share at some point. Gorgeous!

2016 has not been the easiest year on a personal level - let's not even start on global events. Which is why I am especially looking forward to this next couple of weeks; this holiday that is traditionally about peace and goodwill to all will hopefully be a time to focus on all the bright, shiny things that sometimes get obscured. Family and friends, sparkly lights, the joy of sharing and, yes, a bit of self indulgence.

The cute cat picture of the week is as Christmas themed as I can get - Minx tends to save all her most photogenic moments for when my phone camera is out of hand, the gorgeous little bugger. Still, small mercies - she has yet to bring down the tree!

Day 14: Mull - summertime sadness

Is there anything sadder than the end of a holiday? 

The only bright spot on the (currently rain drenched) horizon is the fact that tomorrow I get to see my beloved Minx (assuming that there are no problems on the roads to delay us). Unlike some cats, who get in a bit of a snit after being sent into exile, she goes into giddy, grateful mode when we are reunited, so I am anticipating many purrs and cuddles tomorrow evening. And few things soothe the soul like a furry, purry ball of pussycat. Here, in fact, is La Minx doing her contended face:

Otherwise, I am sorry to leave Tobermory and Mull and Scotland but I think that we have managed a nice balance between activity and sleepy, bookish torpor. We have also eaten and drunk well for the most part (with one last fishy hurrah to come this evening). Naming a Top Holiday Dish will be hard, but at least it will give me something to do on the ferry tomorrow.

Wednesday's child is full of woe

I intended to do a post every day this week and then, this afternoon, accidentally took a very long nap. At what point does a nap become a full on sleep? If the line has been defined, I think that I definitely crossed it.

So, resorting to cute cat picture it is. Still to come this week though - how to make the "bagels of the North" and meditations on roast chicken.

I may be biased but how gorgeous is she? I never get tired of looking at her.

TWTWTW: Back in the kitchen and the return of the Fakeaway

As mentioned many times on this blog for some unknown reason, when life gets stressful, one of the first things that flies out of the window is the cooking and eating of sensible meals.  I often lose my appetite, which feels ridiculous to say out loud since I do not look like the kind of wan and waif-ey creature who can't bring themselves to eat.  I certainly lose any desire to be in the kitchen.  In these dark days, the toaster becomes the most regularly used tool in the arsenal.

How lovely, then, to finally have got back into some sort of good routine this week.  We have cooked and eaten a number of gorgeous meals and both of us feel a lot better for it.

Yesterday evening, I decided to do a Friday Night Fakeaway for the first time in ages, and cooked a delicious but incredibly simple chicken with cashew nuts, which recipe can be found here.  Chunks of chicken breast are combined with egg white, cornflour and a little sesame oil for twenty minutes or so before cooking, which makes them incredibly tender in the stir fry. Seriously, give this one a go.  I also highly recommend drizzling some curly kale with garlic oil, sprinkling with salt and roasting in a hot oven for 10-15 minutes - you end up with something very akin to the seaweed they serve up at Chinese restaurants; it makes a great side dish and doesn't taste virtuous at all (which is clearly one of the points of fakeaway).

My mojo has returned to such an extent that I currently have some bread dough proving in the sun and, later, I will be giving my new baguette baking trays a whirl.  I have tried baguettes before, and although the taste was successful the shaping...not so much.  Paul "Silver Fox" Hollywood makes it look easy and it really isn't.

I must admit, no points are being counted at the moment - that's the next thing to add in and I'm going to have to spend some proper time pondering how to make the new Smart Points work better for me - my initial impressions were not favourable but the thought of going back to Pro Points, when I rely quite heavily on the online tools, is not really tenable.  I even found myself wondering about sticking my toe in the proverbial Slimming World pool this week - my Mum has had a lot of success on SW and is looking amazing at the moment - but I think that a) I would find it quite limiting and b) I'm just making excuses to avoid putting my head down and getting on with it.

Obligatory cute cat pic of the week:

Minx is, as ever, a furry, purry angel - even despite the fact that she has a charming new habit of coming and waking me up in the early hours for a little bit of a stroke and a cuddle.  Who needs beauty sleep anyway?

TWTWTW: Catch up, Cat, Carriages

Woe

Oooh, all went a bit quiet there, didn't it?  Not to worry, chaps, I didn't decide to run off to the Good Food Show like Nellie the Elephant packing her bags for the circus.  But I have been busy working towards an exam.  And by working towards, of course I mean panicking a lot and shuffling all my bits of paper into piles rather than doing any proper revision.

If anyone out there has some good revision tips then PLEASE share.  I seem to lack the ability to do it properly and just floof about.  Meanwhile, the cat delights in positioning herself in the most awkward place possible.

Joy

The Good Food show itself was great fun.  It was so heartening to see the number of fantastic local suppliers who turned out and plied us with goodies.  Among my take-home haul were several bottles of gin by exciting new distillers and a Yorkshire halloumi cheese which stares at me every time I open the fridge and begs to be fried up until both crispy and squeaky.  I'd like to write up a more detailed post at some point...but time's winged chariot and all that...

More Joy

April 14th was the 12th anniversary of the date on which D and I first met so we went for a belated celebratory dinner at an old favourite: Carriages in Knaresborough.  It's a cute little wine bar-cum-bistro which serves well cooked, decent food and boasts a far better wine list than you'd expect in such a modest establishment.  It's never going to blow your mind but it's the kind of food that most people like to eat, done very well.  I must admit, I ordered scallops and goats' cheese out of curiosity, assuming that it would not quite work, but a delicate touch with the soft, salty cheese mousse actually enhanced the sweetness of the scallops, and showed a real ability to balance ingredients.  They don't have a website but they do have a Facebook page that you can view here for further info.

More Woe

D is continuing to follow the Dukan diet, albeit with a weekend break, and his results continue to be impressive.  My Weight Watching has fallen apart a little bit this week, but I should squeak an STS, having lost a further 0.6 lbs last week.  3.6 lbs in three weeks may not be incredible going, but it's not bad considering that my heart has not really been in it.

Home cooking is a little joyless at the moment; most nights D tucks in to his pile of protein and I add a side of vegetables and whingeing.  We are already looking to recover our cooking mojo in the month of May, and hopefully, I'll get some recipes posted up to the blog - they've been sadly lacking recently.

The next couple of weeks will probably continue to be quiet on the WWF front but I will, at least, try and have another good crack at the Smart Points in the coming week and report back on any progress.

Random

I have recently been going through the photos on my phone and deleting them to create some storage space - the iPad is their home now. One of my plans for this year is to actually get some physical copies printed and do some scrap-booking. How quaint.

My photos can be divided into broadly three categories: Minx, Food and Other. Given that Minx spends 85% of her time asleep, I am not sure exactly why I have ended up with so many pictures of her. But then she is very beautiful.


I have a soft spot for this one because it was actually saved from the Cat Protection League's website - this was the shot they used in her bio and, so, the first picture that I ever saw of her. She looks so scared and sad here, doesn't she? Very different from the contented, purring bundle of fur that is curled up next to me as I write.

There is a sub category of Other which could best be described as "Shots of D where he is trying to pretend that he is not being photographed". I like these (and note the edge of a thumb creeping in to the top left hand corner of the shot).


But the number of food pictures - ridiculous. Particularly since some of them, I no longer remember what or where they are. Here we have a very pretty, but entirely random, cup of something with something else on the side.


Sometimes it must have been home cooked dishes that I intended to blog but failed in doing so. I can only assume that is why I have a picture of what I think is baked eggs and toast:

And another of sea bass (?) with parsnips (?) and garlic (?). This was one of D's and I'll bet he never wrote the recipe down so it will never be recreated exactly.  And what is the beige mush next to the roasted garlic cloves?  I seem to recall that this was a delicious plate of food and I'm now intrigued.

Sometimes it's restaurants that, again, I meant to write about but didn't. These are from our first trip to Homage to Fromage but they're no good for a review now because I haven't got a scooby what the dish on the left is:

Or what any of these cheeses are:

Although for all that, if you are in or around Leeds and like cheese then it comes highly recommended.  You have to really like cheese though - the menu does not cater for the lactose intolerant.

So it's been a pleasant (if slightly random) trip down memory lane, going through all of these and the lessons we take from it are - er, make notes, write up blog posts when you say you're going to do so and never serve up beige mush.  The other lesson is take photography lessons.  It is slightly disappointing to realise that my photography skills have remained so consistently terrible throughout the years.  Perhaps if I ever win the lottery, I can employ the very talented Lesley to take photos for me full time?

Anyway, I'm now off to delete all said random food pictures. A cull. A purge, if you will.  Which, clearly, will leave me with plenty of memory space for more adorable cat shots...

Merry Christmas from S, D and Minx

Very Sundayish

We are definitely well into autumn now.  It's not just in the quality of the light, or the smell in the air but in the little things, like the rumbling hum of the central heating clicking on first thing in the morning, and the fact that the butter is now hard.  I've been looking back and trying to work out exactly where the year has gone.  

I was trying to arrange a Sunday lunch date with a friend recently and she laughingly said that all her weekends were busy between now and Christmas.  Is this true of many people?  Or are D and I just desperately anti-social?  We tend to pass our weekends quietly; reading, sleeping, spending time to prepare nice meals, generally just collecting ourselves for the week ahead.  Later on today, I am going to turn a bag of windfalls into apple butter and perhaps do some baking.  Maybe have a bath while listening to Desert Island Discs on iPlayer.  

In the words of the carol (and, let's face it, it is never too early to start thinking about the C word) all is calm.  Long may it last.

Recently...

No MPM this week as I am away from tomorrow (D will probably live on scavengings from the fridge and freezer) and the first few days were...actually, mainly scavenging from the fridge and freezer.  So it would not have made very interesting reading.  But, mindful of my resolve to blog more frequently, I thought I would do a quick update post.

Weight Watchers

Well, this blog is called the weight watchers foodie, isn't it?  Maybe I should just rename it the foodie.  Or just some girl who likes to eat and also talks about her cat an inordinate amount.  Whatever, at the moment it just isn't happening.  I have decided to stop worrying about why this is for the time being.  My goal for the next few weeks is just to concentrate on healthy routines.  We go away to Scotland for the first fortnight in August which will be a great opportunity to recharge, relax and generally get a bit of oomph back.  Then, when I return, I can put plans in place to crack on and make the second half of the year a tale of successful pound shedding. 

Cooking at home

There has been some good cooking going on recently; our favourite new recipe of the year so far remains the fabulous lemongrass and turmeric chicken that I mentioned a few weeks ago and has since already reappeared on our menu. 

Another recent obsession is a fabulous ingredient called 'nduja which is a spicy, spreadable sausage - sounds weird, tastes fantastic.  We bought ours online from The Ham and Cheese Company and intend to make it a regular fixture in our fridge (it lasts for months if wrapped up properly).   We both very much enjoyed this incredibly simple 'nduja spaghetti recipe but perhaps the best way to enjoy it is spread on good bread and then popped under the grill for a couple of minutes and drizzled with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil.  Capers or pickles make a good foil for these little toasts.  Honestly, this stuff is fantastic and highly addictive. 

Out and about

You may have already read my glowing review of Harrogate based Norse which has been a recent highlight.  But I also have to give yet another shout out to the lovely Black Swan in Leeds.  This place manages to be a bar, a pizza parlour and a gastropub and fulfil all three functions well.  We very much enjoyed their pizzas earlier in the year and recently went back to try out the gastropub menu (all in the name of research - D was looking for a Christmas party venue.  Yes, that was the C word.  No, I won't say it again for a while).  If you like robust British pub food then this place will suit you down to the ground - we enjoyed chicken liver parfait and a crispy little porky croquette for  starters and then D tackled the beef and bone marrow burger while I went for a beautifully balanced chicken and chorizo dish.  It's not fayne dayning, but it's very, very good. 



Croquette



Parfait




Chicken and chorizo

Cat stuff

As I mentioned, I'm away for the weekend so D is going to attempt to bond with the cat.  He is calling it Operation: Stockholm.  I sense I am going to come home to one traumatised feline and one husband who is more scratch than skin.  Wish him luck...

"Books. Cats. Life is good."

It's always easy to focus on the negative when, as that glorious Edward Gorey quote suggests, there is plenty to be cheerful about.

Cats, for one thing. We haven't had a Minx picture for a while, have we?

Moody

She continues to be as eccentric a creature as ever there was and a total Mummy's girl to boot which is great news for the Mummy in question - less so for D. She literally walks over him to get to me.

 

On the subject of books - or rather, adaptations of books, has anyone else been watching the adaption of "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" on BBC1?  Fabulous stuff.  One of those series that makes you happy to hand over your license fee.  I am considering rereading the novel (which I adore) but there are so many things to read and so very little time.  One of my current favourite websites is Goodreads; I pore greedily over my personalised recommendations on an almost daily basis.  We are going to Scotland for two weeks in August and I plan to spend quite a lot of quality time with my Kindle. 

 

In other news, our strawberry plants delivered up their first fruit at the weekend.  I wish that I had taken a photograph to mark the occasion.  We ceremoniously ate one strawberry each and agreed that they actually tasted of strawberries which was a minor revelation.  The plants continue to prosper, and we may even get a bowlful to douse with sugar and cream before the summer is out - watch this space.

Happy Easter!

I hope, most fervently, that you all had chocolate for breakfast...or, at the very least, a hot cross bun.

I'll be back soon with tales of an Italian inspired roast leg of lamb and the recipe for a VERY indulgent but seriously good Easter pudding.

In the meantime, I leave you with news that at least one person does not appear to be perturbed by the decline in Creme Egg quality this year...

An apology

Dearest, dearest readers of the blog.

I'm sorry that it has been a sad, neglected little thing lately.

I don't see any point in making excuses.  Although I could use the word my beloved sometimes uses and blame it on the ennui.  January seems a good month for ennui.  It is supposed to be the month in which we get going with all of our resolutions and new goals and new challenges.  And, for me, it always feels like a month to hide away.  I don't want to do new things.  I want to sleep and drink tea and wish for brighter weather.

But I am going to make a concerted effort to change.  I love this little blog.  It is a corner of the internet that I can call my own and I love the people who have stopped by here and made it such a convivial place to be.  I will therefore try and post more regularly, even if I don't feel like I have much to say.  The nice thing about blogs is that they are so entirely personal that you can be upfront and talk about things like the fact that January is horrible and crap, and that you miss sunshine and that you love your cat and that you are having trouble getting your 2015 weight loss campaign up and running and you know that there are people out there who will support you.

I have also been told that I am not allowed to just post pictures of Minx and let that count as communication.  Fairy nuff. But, I ask you, if you had this little sweetie on your knee while you overdosed on Netflix, would you be inclined to move her?

No, exactly.

Have a merry, Minxy Christmas

All best wishes to all the lovely people who have stopped by this blog over the past year.

With lots of love from Seren, D and Minx

Now, what to write next year.....?