Proud Mum!

First donation!

Today dawned wet and horrible! Welcome to the New Year! The morning was spent sorting out the car insurance for the new Hyundai and we managed to get it for under £1000 which I was really pleased about. Sophie is the main driver, with Keith and I as named drivers and that's why I think we were able to bring the price down a bit.

Sophie and I had an appointment to give blood at midday and Mike wanted to come along as well. We'd all had a lazy start to the day and so it was good to get out at 1pm and donate a pint each!

Everything went very well and Sophie gave her 10th pint of blood. Mike enjoyed the experience and luckily felt fine. We sat and enjoyed a drink and a biscuit afterwards and then drove over to Rushden Lakes as Mike needed to take some clothes back to River Island.

The shopping centre was busy but we parked easily enough and went to change the clothes first. Mike picked out a faux suede jacket, a hoodie and some socks and had to pay just £2. The jacket had been reduced from £85 to £40. I would have cried if I'd bought it for him for Christmas!

We went for a coffee at Costa and then had a mooch about in House of Fraser but we didn't see anything else we liked so we called it a day and drove home in the gloom. I dropped Mike off in the village so he could see one of his mates but warned him to be home in time for dinner as it was Paella (we didn't have it in the end, on New Year's Eve).

Sophie prepared all the vegetables and I really enjoyed cooking the dish. Mike arrived home about ten minutes before we were due to eat and we all agreed that it was delicious. In the past the rice has still been a bit gritty but we cooked it slowly and it was lovely. This year we're going to try and be a bit more adventurous with our cooking and Sophie and I love creating dishes together in the kitchen!