A quiet Thursday

I weighed myself this morning and saw that I've lost nine pounds so far! I was delighted, but there's still a long way to go!

I avoided the roadworks on the road up to the A43 and went via Brixworth, leaving ten minutes earlier than normal. I wasn't keen on the route and missed seeing people (and cars) that I see every day! It's a good alternative, though, and didn't take me too much longer.

Today has been quiet, and I had a busy shift at work getting a lot done in my six hours. At 2pm, I drove home and have to confess to not doing too much at all. I felt a little queasy; I'd finished off the soup from last night for lunch and then I'd drunk almost a whole bottle of fizzy water. I don't think the coconut milk and the water went well together!

After a very simple supper of fish and mashed potatoes, served with Keith's own mushy peas, Sophie and I watched Race Across the World. One of the contestants became overwhelmed in India by the noise, crowds and confusion. I know I would feel the same. It's one of the reasons why I've been reluctant to visit!

A busy day!

I had an appointment for a contact lens check at Boots this morning, so after a relaxed start and coffee, Keith and I drove to the Weston Favell Centre. We had time for another quick coffee, and I gave Keith a list of ingredients for tonight's supper, a Thai-inspired coconut chicken and mushroom soup, which he was going to buy in Tesco.

I saw a lovely optician, who checked my eyes and suggested I switch to disposable daily lenses as I'm not wearing them very often. I agreed, so she gave me a pack of five to try and let the branch know how I get on with them. My nails have grown, so I had a worry about getting them out, which isn't easy with longer nails!

When I met up with Keith, he had managed to get the ingredients for the soup, namely lemongrass, galangal, coriander, chillies and Thai red curry paste. I texted Sophie about meeting her for lunch and she asked us to go straight down to her office. 

Sophie had already had lunch, but she joined us and had a cup of tea, while Keith and I chose sandwiches. It was lovely to sit and chat for half an hour, and we managed to avoid getting cake afterwards! I definitely feel a little slimmer, but I'm going to weigh myself tomorrow... !

We walked back to Sophie's office, said goodbye and drove over to Kettering to drop off a CD for my Dad that he'd asked me to order last week. I put it on for him, stayed and chatted to my parents for a while, and then it was time to go home and get on with the usual Wednesday chores!

As is usual with soup, it took me ages to prepare the ingredients. Keith had already cut up the chicken, but I finely chopped shallots, chillies, garlic and mushrooms. I bashed the lemongrass stalks and put the rest of the ingredients into little pots ready to be added to the soup.

The various spices smelled delicious when I started cooking, and I let everything simmer slowly. I'd added the chicken and coconut milk, and felt quite hungry!

Here is the recipe:

Sophie returned from work, and it was great to sit and relax while the soup simmered. We served the soup with naan bread, and I was delighted with how it tasted! I sprinkled some coriander over mine.

We will definitely make this again!

I donate a pint

I became trapped in the traffic jam this morning and was late for work again! This is not good! I'll have to figure out another way to go on Thursday morning, or leave very early!

I had a busy shift at work and caught up with the emails by mid-afternooon. Before I left at 4pm, I filled out my blood donor questionnaire as I had an appointment to give blood at 4.30pm. On the way I drove to the garage in Moulton to see if Glenn was back, but the building was locked up. We'll have to try again next Wednesday!

My blood donor appointment (my 47th pint) passed pleasantly and quickly. I drove home via Moulton to avoid the dreaded roadworks and arrived just after Sophie. We sat in the kitchen and relaxed as dinner was already prepared, and we just had to add a little more cheese and make garlic bread. There was still enough left in the casserole dish for two lunches for Sophie... phew!

Keith disappeared upstairs to watch football while Sophie and I watched another cringey Virgin Island programme. I'm not sure exactly why we continue to watch it when both of us find it so awkward!

A little fragile!

Sophie felt a little fragile this morning (a bottle of Vouvray, followed by a bottle of red Sablet will do that to you!), so she skipped the gym, and we watched A Place in the Sun: Home and Away with a coffee.

My shift passed pleasantly, and I managed to get a lot done, including the moan report. What a relief that is! Keith picked me up at 4pm, and said there was a lot of traffic at the Holcot roundabout because of roadworks, so we drove home via Overstone, and then turned right onto the A43 because of cars queuing. It's the most inconvenient place to have roadworks, virtually on the roundabout!

I did half an hour on the bike and then pootled about doing the evening chores. Sophie came home and we relaxed in the kitchen before she made a lovely chicken Arrabbiata pasta dish. There was so much left that we decided to have it again for dinner tomorrow!

After dinner, I watched an interesting documentary about swimming clubs, featuring Swim England, with whom we have connections at work. I'm not sure they came out of the documentary very well at all, and it made for quite a disturbing watch. This was followed by Scam Interceptors, and there must be a special place in hell for people who try and scam elderly and vulnerable people out of their life savings. I hope they burn for all eternity!

Eurovision Song Contest Day!

The morning was spent preparing for today's Eurovision dinner: beef stroganoff followed by fruit pavlova. We have it every time we watch Eurovision!

As well as preparing the meal, we cleaned the house and did laundry. The weather has been dry and sunny again, with more cloud in the morning, clearing to sunshine in the afternoon. Sophie filed and painted my nails in the afternoon, and we played Scrabble early, accompanied by a glass of sparkling Vouvray. Bliss!

We started watching the music festival at about 4:30 pm, as we knew that if we left it until after we'd had dinner, we'd have a late night! We'd seen some of the songs when watching the semi-finals, and we each had our favourites. If we'd been able to vote, I would have chosen Ukraine, Germany, and Greece, but we were a day late! We loved the three women presenting, especially Hazel Brugger, who was mad!

Halfway through, we prepared dinner, and I boiled a pan of basmati rice. The meal was delicious, with enough leftovers for two lunches. We watched the second half and enjoyed a slice of pavlova topped with strawberries and chocolate buttons. Indulgent, but it doesn't hurt once in a while!

By 9pm, we were all done and cheering Austria as the winner. Now all we need to do is get tickets for next year (the 70th Anniversary!) and return to Vienna for Sophie's 30th birthday!

An evening with Levison Wood

Sophie and I were excited to see Levison Wood this evening and Sophie had managed to bag front row seats! We had booked a table at Lola's for 5.30pm and Keith very kindly dropped us off so we could enjoy a few glasses of wine.

Lola's was empty when we arrived, but the bar/restaurant soon filled up. Some people had chosen to sit outside in the early evening sunshine, but we took the same table we'd sat at the last time, overlooking the downstairs bar.

We ordered a bottle of the house Spanish red and two bottles of sparkling water. We decided to order different tapas dishes this time: pork belly bites, pigs' cheeks with pureéd potato, black pudding topped with a sticky marmalade, padron peppers, cod croquettes and sublime peppers stuffed with soft cheese. The food was delicious and the pork belly bites and peppers were especially lovely. The red wine went well with the food and we both did a bit of people-watching, always our favourite pastime!

We managed to find room for puds - Sophie indulged in churros with chocolate sauce while I opted for the blackberry pannacota dusted with chocolate.

All the staff were friendly and the service was great. At 7pm, we paid the bill and walked the short distance to the Royal, where Levison Wood was appearing. Derngate was also busy with people arriving for an evening performance of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. 

We took our seats on the front row, and Levison Wood appeared at 7.30pm, dressed very casually in jeans, a tee-shirt and a jacket. He was a little greyer than when we'd last seen him in 2017,  but very entertaining and interesting. He opened the show and talked about fear, describing the car accident that had nearly killed him while in Nepal.

Fear was the theme of the evening, and he showed us some alarming clips of when he was in Syria and had come under fire. He must be mad! At the interval, Sophie and I had a glass of Shiraz and chatted about the show. You were able to buy his books in the foyer, and we both said that we'd love to watch the programmes again.

In the second half of the show, a female journalist interviewed him and showed some more clips, one of which was an excerpt from Walking with Elephants, where lions killed a water buffalo, much to Sophie's horror. He then had a question-and-answer session with the audience, who asked some good questions.

It had been an excellent evening and thoroughly enjoyable. It was great to see Levison Wood so close! We joined the throngs of people leaving, as Keith had texted to say he'd arrived, and drove home gazing at the beautiful evening sky.

Mooney was already in when we arrived home and was sitting on the windowsill waiting for us! Gomez appeared, so Sophie was able to get both cats in. We avoided watching the Eurovision Song Contest... that's strictly reserved for tomorrow!

English country gardens!

Saturday 17th of May

At 8.30am this morning, I was primed and ready to buy tickets for our BBC Proms night in September. We wanted to go to the Classic Thriller Soundtracks, conducted by Edwin Outwater, with music from Vertigo, Psycho and North by Northwest!

We had already made our "plan", so when I went onto the website, I was asked to redeem it. I was then put into the "waiting room" with a countdown to 9am when we would be allocated a place in the queue to buy tickets.

Sophie and I sat with a cup of coffee, and at 9am, I was allocated a place in the queue... I was about 14,900! Sophie then logged on with her phone and went onto the bookings (without a plan) page, and was before me in the queue! We both had over an hour's wait, and the time passed quickly, thank goodness. Plans to watch Saturday Kitchen fell by the wayside as we were glued to the computer and phone!

At about 10.30am, Sophie was able to buy two tickets for the evening, which was fantastic! I was still about 3000th in the queue, so there was no incentive to make a plan. I think this applies to people who want to go to more than one concert. We were absolutely thrilled to get tickets, and we have provisionally booked a hotel for the night as we don't fancy getting a train home at 11pm.

Having achieved the most important objective of the day, we drove over to the care home to take Mum some items she needed and then popped to the recycling centre at Brixworth (which is now open every day!) to take some unwanted clothes. Sophie had two large bags from work, as the people in her office had been running a clothes swap session over the last few months. It was a great idea, but some of the clothes had failed to find a home, so we put them into the textile bins at the tip.

Back home, we both had a quick lunch and set off for Walgrave to have a walk around the open gardens.

It was cool and cloudy, but looking at the weather forecast, the sun was due to shine later in the afternoon. We walked to the village hall first and paid £10 for a map of the gardens. We decided to head up past the school and start at garden number 1. There was a short description of each garden and clues for a treasure hunt for children.

We walked across the playing fields and dropped down to the street where we used to live.

Silver Street, where we lived for eleven years

It was then up the hill to the pub, and a walk up to the school.

The first garden was on the outskirts of the village, and it felt a little strange at first going onto someone's property! The owner was very friendly, though, and we chatted about how long he'd lived in the village and then admired the beautiful garden.

The second garden was a haven for wildlife and had swings for the owner's children. Again, it was great to chat and find out a little about the people who lived there. At this house, the woman we spoke to mentioned that they'd bought the house from an old lady, and Sophie and I remembered seeing her standing at the window when I used to collect the children from school.

On our approach to the third garden, we saw a little Muntjac deer in the field next to the track! The garden was a piece of land occupied by aviaries as the owner was a keen racing pigeon enthusiast. He also kept budgerigars and canaries. We chatted to him about the birds and said hello to them as they twittered away!

We walked back into the village and the lure of the pub! It was lovely to sit outside with a half pint and say hello to people passing by. I recognised a lot of people today from living in the village and frequenting the pub!

By now, the sun had appeared, and it was pleasantly warm. We finished our drinks and walked back down Zion Hill to the fourth garden, which was filled with gorgeous shrubs and flowering plants. From here, we popped into the Baptist Chapel where Keith and I had been married more than thirty years ago (the vicar of the Parish Church wouldn't marry us as Keith was divorced).

Baptist Chapel built in 1786

There was a small craft fair in progress, and I admired a beautiful piece of wood shaped into different bowls. It was £600!

From the Baptist Chapel, we walked to a gorgeous garden on a corner plot. The garden wrapped around the house and was huge! The owner was busy talking to a couple, and he must be retired to keep such a large garden looking so beautiful!

There was a Monkey Puzzle tree in the border and I made myself go and look at it... I have a bit of a phobia about these trees, or Araucaria araucana, as I think a spider dropped out of one of them onto my head when I was very young. If I see a full-grown one, I shudder!

The next two houses had stunning gardens with views over open fields. The first one covered three acres and had an orchard leading down to meadows. I couldn't get over how beautiful the views were!

At the second house, we were able to buy lovely pottery items and Sophie treated us to three pretty dishes - one as a tealight holder, one was a soap dish that she planned to hang in her room, and the third was perfect for dips. The woman who lived in the house was giddy with excitement at having people buy her pottery! 

Sophie and I agreed it was a perfect afternoon and very genteel! Everyone was friendly, chatty and admiring of the beautiful gardens. It was obvious that a lot of hard work had gone into their upkeep. We saw two more before we walked back to the village hall for a cup of tea and a slice of cake.

We sat inside and enjoyed our tea and cake, looking at a leaflet about village concerts over the summer. There is always so much going on in the countryside - you'd never be bored!

We took a slow walk back home, as by now it was warm and we had a bit of an uphill walk. Sophie jumped straight into the shower, and I followed when she was done, as we were leaving at 5pm to drive into town to see Levison Wood at Derngate. What a busy day!