Los bebés


Last week the two of us travelled to Suffolk to visit Nom's aunty Bibi. She and uncle Joff were moving to a bigger house just a few minutes walk from where they'd been staying. This sounds relatively simple, but added to the equation were two four-month-old twins, two young, boisterous Labradors and the fact that Joff was away moving most of their stuff from their previous home in Derbyshire. You can see, then, why we were drafted in to help. Fortunately for us Bibi cooks a wonderful Spanish omelette and, as you can see, the babies are ridiculously cute.







Joff and Bibi's new home is in a small village surrounded by ample stretches of greenery. The dogs and babies take regular walks past a farmhouse that keeps some interesting pets: chickens, geese and Norfolk pigs, which have recently been revived from extinction!






The new house is very quaint: it has old crooked door frames (low enough to bump your head), a thatched roof, an enormous fireplace, and a vegetable patch. We'd happily swap pads with them for a while, and we're sure they'll be happy there.





Plaster Party


It was my sister's 18th birthday today. She had some people round for food. My parents are having a load of work done on their house and the most convenient available party space was a room that's recently been stripped down, knocked through and freshly plastered. I think they were a bit embarrassed about it, but I thought it looked pretty suave in a continental, unpolished, minimalist sort of way. I told them not to bother with the new floorboards. Here's the birthday girl by the way:


Enjoy being an adult Vanessa.

Hurrah for a holiday!






We hit the Grand Union Canal with 7 lovely people and 69 feet of Narrow Boat Joy and took on the wild waters between Weedon Bec and Great Linford. We played bananagrams, ate cooked breakfasts, pulled off some amazing manoeuvres, read books, got sunburnt, held baby animals, moored up, fed ducks, ate out, ate on, ate in and ate ate ate. And Malc navigated all 2,813 m of the Blisworth Tunnel with just one little bump.

Between busy times of intense relaxation we found time for a spot of food experimentation in the form of: lamb and mint kebabs, stewed strawberries, lavender champagne and some more elderflower cordial.












No spend month update. The End


So No Spend Month is up and we over spent... by quite a lot. Even taking off a number of the grey area spending items from our final total we went £16.27 over our £120 limit. In reality we spent £253.57 plus bills. And we got away with other things, such as eating for free at our parents.

Still, we must have made some positive changes because it feels odd now to spend "normally". We have increased our awareness of what we spend. And there are very few things saved on our "to buy as soon as we're allowed to spend money again" list (they are: fresh fruit and veg, garlic, socks and bleach).

It'll all be worth it


We collected a load of elderflower heads today, with the intention of using it to make cordial. Unfortunately, greenfly like elderflower even more than we do. Having recently washed all our potted herbs to prevent an infestation we didn't want these newcomers to ruin all our hard work, or our cordial for that matter, so we rinsed the whole lot, stem by stem, in the bath. Fortunately the debris looks pretty (see above) and our bathroom now has a pleasant floral aroma.

[Menu Thoughts] Tajine


Take 2: our second attempt at this chicken tajine was much more successful (the first attempt ended in a broken tajine and the meal being finished for our guests in a casserole dish). 

Basic recipe: coat 8 chicken drums in flour and spices, brown off in tajine on the hob (use a heat diffuser!). Soften some sliced onion with garlic and herbs, then add chicken stock, chicken, some veg, lentils and any herbs that you fancy. Bring it all to the boil and shove in the oven at 150ºC for about an hour.

Serve with slices of preserved lemon, olives and rice.





Bring on the 'Shine




Summer Goals 2011

make wicked ice cream 
(get the ice cream maker "back")
go camping
make ice lollies 
do some photo cools
    -more pics of people
    -at least one family shoot
go for nightly walks
listen to the book of the week
cycle for a picnic
listen to an album
visit lots of friends
make good use of the garage
wear good clothes
go swimming
have a dress date
grow some of the grow list (lambs lettuce, mushrooms, lavender...)
have lots of dinner guests

21 Again


Mum threw a garden party to celebrate her big birthday. She made a tun of tiny cakes so that everyone could try a bit of each and most people didn't stop at one, particularly with the mini-meringues (topped with chocolate paste).



There was a hammock and two sofas in the garden to lounge on. We decorated with swathes of bunting and a spot of reused tissue paper...

 

Drank a fair bit of Pimms...


Milled around chatting...











And did a spot of photo boothing in the summer house!