2009: A year in recipes, rambles and silly buggery
Well, well. Another year over. I’ve just been reading my post from around this time last year. I called it Love, Loss, Ups and Downs, and I think the title could well apply to 2009 as well.
January was a lemon meringue pie and beef stew and dumplings kind of a month. The greenhouse blew away and I felt all growed up after hosting my first family Christmas. February was perfect for chocolate fondants and learning all about secondary fluffage. March was all pink birthday meringue and bourbon biscuits.
April was a monster month for me,when myself and the other intrepid members of the Disney 7 hit Florida in a big way, following lovely Disney Sarah around Walt Disney World like a little drunken gaggle of ducklings, #2 celebrated his birthday with a ridiculously chocolatey double chocolate meringue cheesecake and the Mad Professor turned 14. I made not cross buns for Easter and continued boring you about my Disney trip well into May (we even got a mention in The Times… yawn…), as well as churning out some rather fattening dark chocolate and peanut butter brownies and having smutty conversations about how much I love a good sausage.
In June, I got the sack and cooked butternut squash and chickpea curry (not at the same time) and in July I rejigged my 70s ginger cake, made some fabulously soft iced buns and learned not to leave my dog in the house alone.
August was the month when our wedding blessing plans really began to take shape. My easy tandoori chicken with cheaty flatbreads recipe got a mention in the Irish Times and the site got a well deserved facelift courtesy of the wonderful Andy at ADD Creative. It was, however, also the month when Hubby was told that he was going to lose his job.
Despite this, our wonderful wedding blessing in September was everything we’d hoped it would be, and I continued with the family theme, making Grandma Maudie’s cranberry teabread, as well as chicken and broccoli pie with step by step pastry.
October saw The Death Wish Child learn that it’s probably not politically correct to put disabled people in a stew, English Grandma popping over for a birthday visit and some rum and raisin brownies, but shortly afterwards Hubby was offered a job in the UK and went off to work there. I think in my heart I knew that the boys and I wouldn’t be happy without him for long, and in November, we packed up our wonderful Irish home and headed back to Hertfordshire, waving a sad goodbye to our friends in Ireland, our lovely chickens, and Bert the greyhound.
Regular readers will know that we’d already more or less decided to find Bert a new, loving, child-free home after a couple of worrying, growly incidents. The prospect of moving back to the UK and living, albeit temporarily, with my Mum (along with her dog and cat) while we found a house galvanised us into action and my mate Jen, who is well-connected in the greyhound world, found Bert a new home. Still, driving up north to meet up with the greyhound charity lady who was arranging it was an incredibly sad journey. I hope the old boy is happy in his new home. Sadly, the lady has ignored all my attempts at contact, so I just have to hope it all turned out well.
December, then, finds us back home in Hertfordshire. I’m pleased to be back with all our family and friends, but have struggled with the move, wondering exactly where I fit in. Still, Christmas was wonderful, with masses of champagne, Christmas baking, turkey and stuffing.
And what of 2010? Well, this blog will see its 4th birthday and I’ll see my 40th (hopefully in Paris… hint, hint). I’ll be well on the way to 1000 blog posts and 10,000 comments. Hubby is happy in his work and my lovely fellas, The Mad Professor and my little Death Wish Child are finally settled back into the local school, enjoying rebuilding old friendships.
And me? I’ll be here, in the kitchen baking cakey buns, probably. Who knows, maybe even with a new little canine companion and hopefully some work to keep me occupied. Remember to pop in and say hello (especially if you’re the Editor of a magazine – I’ll work for alcohol!).
I hope that this new decade brings you health and happiness. I hesitate to say wealth as I think we’re all beginning to realise that there are so many more important things in life. So wherever you are, thanks as always for reading, and have a very happy new year!
The Friday photo/speedboat video and all about our holliers to London
Righty ho, so. Moving on, then, after the Dog-gate debacle (insurers were very sympathetic: ‘your dog ate your woodwork madam? (suppressed chuckle) oh dear, we can’t have that, can we?’) I have loads and buckets and tons of holiday reminiscing to get through. Fasten your seatbelts, then.
First up, then, on Friday night we went out with the Disreputable One to a very nice Chinese restaurant, where we seriously stuffed our faces and made inappropriate jokes about Hubby wearing a mankini to the blessing (hope you’re not reading this bit, Rev’d Craig!). Great time was had by all and the food was fabulosi.
Saturday saw us generally sodding about and ended with a scared me and a rather enthusiastic Hubby out ‘on the lash’ with Mad Uncle Alg and a few of his mates. We got to the bar, got our drinks, found a table, got introduced to everyone (‘you know Jav and Wrighty don’t you? This is Tucker, and this tosser is my Aussie lodger…’ ) and I’d taken the first sip out of my pear cider only to discover that the rest of them had already drunk up and we were off to the next pub. Sheesh. I won’t go into the gory details but needless to say I was telephoned the next day by my brother:
Ali: ‘You’re not a boozing legend, Sis’
Me: ‘No, I certainly am not. I couldn’t keep up with you’
Ali: ‘Poor effort, Sis, poor effort’
Me: ‘At least I didn’t get drunk and show everyone my butt crack’:
Alg: ‘Ah, but I am a boozing legend…’
Me: ‘You certainly are’
Sunday saw us off to the beautiful pad of my older brother, Uncle I, the Lycheeni Legend, and his lovely wife L, along with my nephew, budding chef Jackson who often tries out my recipes for me (‘I made a pavlova!’):
…and my niece, the beautiful Madame Turtle (‘I made it sparkly!’):
Along with their ancient and adorable German Shorthaired Pointer, Lottie:
and their mad collection of animals, including several bonkers chickens and these, their second generation of tortoises:
Ah, good times. On Monday we went Wedding Blessing Shopping (oh yes, suits…dress..the works – and we bumped into my lovely Auntie [Moon's Mum] and cousin in a shopping centre – how spooky is that?) and I finally got my longed-for evening out with my lovely girlfriends Tums and Bex – we had a fantastic meal (antipasti, a gorgeous Halloumi and spinach salad with a lovely pear chutney, and a panna cotta with rhubarb….slurrrp) and a bottle of wine and caught up on all the goss (I miss you guys already – see you in September! xxx).
Tuesday saw us off to London for a spectacular ’flight’ on the London Eye:
… and a fantastic ‘Ultimate James Bond London Adventure trip on the Thames, which saw us hurtling up and down the Thames at breakneck speed. It rained at one point and the sensation was akin to being sandblasted, but still, it was amazing and the kids LOVED it. Brace yourself, this video’s a bit noisy:
On the way back we slowed down and did a bit of history stuff – our hosts were friendly and funny (‘if anyone feels sick, just put your hand up in the air. Don’t feel ashamed - you’re letting yourself down and ruining the trip for everyone else – but put your hand up anyway’).
The lovely chaps at London RIB Voyages gave me three 20% off vouchers too, so if anyone is planning a trip to London and wants them, drop me an email and I’ll send them to you.
After all that excitement, and looking somewhat like Animal from the Muppets (note to self, schedule speedboat at the end of the day), we headed to Covent Garden where we obviously had to go and have lunch at the legendary Porters:
… then pop into Patisserie Valerie for a little dessert. Hmmm, decisions, decisions…:
Caught up with my lovely friend Jules on Wednesday (there just isn’t enough time to catch up with everyone) and Hubby and I managed to go out for a curry too (first one in TWO years – it was awesome) and before we could blink, Thursday saw us waving a tearful goodbye to my Ma (who must have thought a whirlwind had whipped through her house and left a trail of destruction in its wake) and whizzing back up to Holyhead and the doggy decimation that was English Towers. Still, nice to be home…
The Friday photo: guilty much?
D next door was away last weekend and I looked after his aged kitty cat. This is my most hated neighbourly favour (kitty litter… bleurgh). He was very grateful, though, and gave me a lovely 1lb box of Cadbury’s Roses. We opened them last night and had a couple. My favourite is the hazelnut whirl, by the way. Today, then, Hubby and I popped out to do the last of our Christmas shopping. We left them up on the bookshelf. The second shelf up on the bookshelf (it is a floor to ceiling bookshelf and only has three shelves). When we were gone, someone took it upon themselves to climb up onto the sofa, teeter upon the arm of the sofa and steal said box of chocolates. That someone then took them to his bed where he proceeded to devour them, wrappers and all.
When we got home and this theft was discovered (someone‘s bed being covered in ripped Cadbury’s Roses box and small bits of chocolate kind of gave it away), someone was busted. There was a bit of bad language and aforementioned someone got ignored by every member of the house all evening (this is much, much worse than shouting) and got only dry food for dinner (much, much worse than being ignored and being shouted at). Someone then took to the sofa where he proceeded to sulk for the rest of the day.
That’s what happens when you eat my hazelnut whirls. Zero tolerance. Be afraid.
The Friday Photo: In which Bert helps with the washing up
Lemon cake and custard for pudding, then. And that means the one with the longest nose gets the most custard out of the jug. Guess who?
We even got him on video (hope you can’t hear me wittering on in the background…I was gutted because I burned my ‘fake’ Le Creuset pot):
The Friday Photo: there’s gonna be some changes round here
So this is how we woke up this morning. Hubby’s back soon. Bert’s going to have to stop thinking he’s human any minute now…..
