hooking and cooking

Lets start with something going well:

I am well chuffed with how this is shaping up.  It seems that the previous bunching-up problem was easily resolved by simply reading and following the pattern correctly.  Duh. 

Now let's move on to the yawntastic topic of - dieting.   YAAAAWWWwwwn.

Last weekend, once more,  I reached tipping point and trundled off to a Rosemary Conley class to stave off the extra half a stone which has become my unwanted friend.  Really, I shouldn't be surprised that a noticeable and defiant decrease in exercise and a steady increase in wine and cakes should be a-showing on the old tum, but it leaves me heavy-hearted to part with over twenty quid a month and count calories in a little black book for weeks on end.

It works, course it does - less intake and exercise upping is bound to do the job, but it's dull, and an anal topic of conversation because that's all you want to talk about to any poor sod who lends an ear.  But at the end of it, my jeans will hang a little, and not need undoing sat in a restaurant like they did last weekend before I could shovel in the next course.  Ahem.....

Yesterday I was reading in the sunday papes about the 5:2 diet - you know,  the one that's the latest thing in diets, and wondering if I could give it a whirl.  I have nothing to lose - I'm already bloody calorie counting anyway, in for a penny and all that.  I was previously put off because it contains the word 'fasting' for two days, and images of hippy-fied well-intentioned students all living off of a cup of water for 48 hours sprung to mind and scared the living bejaysus out of me. 

At present, I am working off of a 1500 calorie day diet, supposedly everything being under 5% fat with a few exceptions.  It's certainly do-able, and a piece of piss without having to take wine into consideration, but the idea of two days of 500 calories (gulp) and then five days of 2000 calories makes me feel insanely cheerful. 

According to research, fasting is a good thing with many benefits to the body, which I will not bore you with here, but appeal to me big-time.  You could read more absolutely fascinating facts here.

Sue blogged about it here, too.

So today is my first fast day.  It is 1pm and so far today, I have consumed 2 cups of coffee with milk , and 3 apricots.  Whoop-di-doo-dah.  And at the moment, I feel pleasantly hungry.  It is much, much easier to do this knowing I only have to make it til the end of the day.  Porridge and latte for brekkie tomorrow.  I have just been to Sainsburys and purchased 6 tubs of their soup, just for fast day purposes.  I have done a bit of recipe searching and I know I can rustle up a cauldron of soup for about 3 calories, so that's a-brewing I can tell ye.  And I have bullied Mark into giving this a go too.  Feel a bit worried that 600 calories with a fairly physical job may not be sufficient, but he is pretty gung ho, so we shall see.

Will report back.

Provided I haven't eaten the keyboard by then.

As oop north as it goes

We are returned from a weekend break in North Devon. 

We did a bit of this

 

and a bit of that

and a bit of the other.

Arlington Court*

We were doing pretty much the self-same things this time last year too.  Nothing like a bit of routine.

Whilst partaking in a bit of this in Ilfracombe,  I spotted a Colossus in the harbour:

Astonished, I yelled over to Mark 'where did that come from - it wasn't here last year was it??!'  He confirmed I was not mental and had missed it last year whilst strolling harbour side.  It looked huge from high on the 7th tee, so goodness knows how big it was up close and personal. 

So we went down to take a look.  It was quite amazing to behold and, as predicted, incredibly large.  (taller than the Angel Of The North from base to sword tip, apparently).  And weird.  There was no information available on what it was all about and so we had to content ourselves with waiting til we got home to do a spot of Internet research.

It is called 'Verity', and is by Damien Hirst, quelle surprise.  Seemingly he owns a restaurant locally and the statue is on loan for 20 years to the people of Ilfracombe.  50% of whom think it grotesque and an eyesore in this Victorian seaside town.  Interesting, velly intelesting.  Personally I think it is quite magnificent and certainly a talking point for the town which is, quite frankly, a bit run down and dead-end.  I think it is supposed to have the effect of increasing tourism, but the people of Ilfracombe seem pretty ungrateful and short sighted about it.  If the calibre of its people at the top end of town is anything to go by, the influx of normal people to the town should be welcomed as a blessing and a Godsend.  ('... so I got 120 hours f***ing community service' was the phrase I overheard a callow youth bellowing to his cretinous sidekicks outside a local pub).

I read some of the comments posted on the Internet about Verity at the time of her arrival, and some dipstick had expressed an opinion that the statue would 'encourage teenage pregnancy'.   Seriously??  If anything, a good butcher's at an exposed bronzed foetus would make any normal young girl think twice would it not??  However, we are talking about a special kind of mentality here....

 

On an aside,  yesterday was our Fourteenth wedding anniversary.  We don't exchange gifts for this, but he bought me these:

Thereby putting me in the position of being a bit of a taker, so I offered a full body massage (all above board, you mucky pups) which roughly translates to a wipe down with an oily rag in front of the telly at 10.30pm.  I am an aromatherapy fan and make up oils on a regular basis, but I currently have no carrier oil (veg/almond oil) in the house.  Having offered said massage, I had to come good, so resorted to making up an oil with bergamot and olive oil.  This turned out to be a bit of a mistake, as olive oil is too viscous (think that's the right word) and too strong in smell.  It was like sleeping next to a fried cup of earl grey tea and gave me weird dreams.

Laters.

* Arlington Court did not have a mug in the shop.  My NT mug collection is scuppered already.  I gave the shop assistant a look on the way out.  That'll learn her.

an altercation

This morning I trundled along to Sainsburys to check the tyre pressures on the car.  I know.  I do this, but it should be a boy's job as it involves bending down in an ungainly fashion in front of people to squat at dirty tyres and fumble about with dirty dust caps whilst wrestling an ugly dance around the car with a rubber hose.   Anyhoo, this done, Oliver asked if we could go in the car wash.  I feebly argued no - a dirty car is the least of my worries in the big picture of things, but gave in as I just couldn't be arsed to eventually be forced to have to do it manually myself and went off to purchase said wash. 

When I came out, about two and a half minutes later, a queue of three cars had formed behind me (where there was previously none in sight) and a man (we'll call him Mr Peeves, and as he was older than me we'll call him Old Mr Peeves) was waiting by my car to inform me, in no uncertain terms, that I could have moved out of the way whilst I went into the kiosk, and I was inconsiderate blah blah blah, to which I took exception.

Firstly, this is a garage which lacks 'pull over space' as it is set into a 'bowl' with one narrow way in - and one narrow way out.  Secondly, there was no-one waiting behind me when I went in to the kiosk, and thirdly - WTF??!  I was stunned that he thought it OK to get out of his car and confront me in such a manner when what I had 'done' was pretty innocuous.  So I waved my arms about and yelled a bit, temper rising by the second, and when he carried on moaning, complaining and gesticulating,  I yelled 'oh bugger off' at the top of my voice, got in the car and slammed the door.  Then, seeing poor Oliver's astonished and upset face it occurred to me the man may have spoken to him through the open car windows before I had got back.  He confirmed that the man did, in fact ask where I was.  My rage went stellar.  I leapt out of the car, marched over yelling 'hey - hey - HEY - did you SPEAK to my child???????' He got out of the car spluttering confirmation.  I was so incensed I screeched 'don't you speak to my child - DON'T you speak to my child how DARE you - you do NOT speak to him!'  It was very loud, there was much angry finger pointing, and a red mist. 

Gawd almighty.

It was not one of my finer moments. 

I am very disappointed with myself.  I am angry with Old Mr Peeves, because I don't really think I did anything unreasonable enough to warrant a face-to-face ticking off,  but I am so upset at how badly I expressed myself, and I don't think I did Oliver any favours at all flying off the handle like that. I truly gave no thought to anyone or anything other than venting the overwhelming anger that I felt.

In summary: Could do better.

what do you mean you need a break from the old routine??

I have to say I am enormously glad the Easter holidays are over. 

Not only am I grateful for the return of quiet and order in public places and the meandering routine of our day-to-day lives, but I am overwhelmingly relieved that I don't have to make any more sodding arrangements to 'catch up' with people I only see during school holidays because their offspring are normally a l'ecole. 

Every day for two weeks I have had to be clock-watching and ferrying Oliver around to a) take him to Easter tennis club, b) have the house partially socially acceptable for visits or,  worse, c) meet up with people at varying locations (yuk, yuk).  These things I do for my boy.  To be fair, they are not all unbearable and a few are even driven by me.  Still, come last Thursday I was coveting a day at home.  A day spent in my joggers with unkempt hair and smelly pits watching Masterchef on catch up and letting Oliver just be and do.

On Wednesday night I ended up in a filthy row with my brother who insisted I had agreed to look after his son for the entire day on Thursday starting at 7.30am.  No friggin' way jose.  For the record, this was a loose arrangement floated into the ether on Sunday morning with the proviso 'let me know'.  I always say 'let me know' for two reasons.  Firstly I like to know in advance what time I need to be up and at 'em, and secondly, no-one, but no-one turns up on my doorstep unbooked.  I do not like it, I do not encourage it.  This of course excludes telephone warnings up to 15 minutes in advance - I can bear those.  And I do like company on occasion - I am not a complete social reject.  So this is how I know that I did not leave things that he could just rock up sans warning on Thursday morning at the crack of a sparrow's fart leaving me a ten year old for the day.  Cripes alive.  Cue much yelling and an upset child.  (not mine, but the guilt kept me awake that night).  I managed to salvage a soupcon of everybody's happiness by picking him up for a few hours in the afternoon - with a definite start time, and a definite finish time.  Ha ha. 

So, yesterday was welcomed with very wide and open arms.  This week Oliver is starting a term of tennis at the University.  We have an indoor tennis centre there (hitherto unknown in these here parts) but parking there is a bastard and I am dreading the weekly argy bargy in the undersized car park jostling with four hundred other parents for one of twenty spaces while they drop off/pick up Tarquin and Pippa for/from their lesson.  This horror aside, I have toyed with the idea of going along to the 'adult drop in tennis' while Oliver transmutes into a Wimbledon champion at his class.

I made a tentative enquiry to a very sporty looking sort at the front desk - what sort of standard turn up to the adult session, that sort of thing, to which he flashed his very many white teeth at me and started banging on about matchplay.  What I actually heard was 'dkfjsldfj  jadjk,  ajkdfdf -jaljlasd'.  My fear and confusion must have been apparent, as he then kindly slipped back into english and told me about the adult coffee morning tennis instead.  Clearly my grey powdered curls and bi-focals left him in no doubt that I was not going to be up to matchplay any time soon.  I know when I am beat.  Think I might slip along on a Friday morning for a touch of 'adult starters' - surely even I can manage that?

In crochet 'news', of which there is not much to report, I am still crocheting circles and more circles for the blanket which I may or may not gift to my brother.  I braved the 'join as you go' method, which took me an embarrassing length of time to master (and I use the term 'master' very loosely here) but I am still not convinced it is quite right as it looks rather like a four year old has cobbled them together with a set of plastic needles free with Girl's Stuff weekly.

Which is uncanny, because that is exactly the look I am going for.  Ha ha.

I have unpicked more rounds than I have left standing.  Join as you go, my arse.  That's what I say.

Hmmmmmm.

Close, but no cigar.

Is how I would describe my latest efforts dans la cuisine. 

The bean chilli will not be making a re-appearance in it's 10 bean state, that's all I can say.  They did indeed look a beauteous sight post-soaking - full of health, vitamins and promise.  The fully cooked ones looked a little dull, and some of the little blighters were still hard.  Goodness knows how.  They must have a kryptonite core, as they boiled and simmered their little hearts out for what felt like years. 

Anyhoo, we both ate some and lived to tell the tale.  As I left it out in the pot overnight I am too afraid of imaginary bacterial growth and potential gastro diseases to freeze it now, so I am ashamed to say I threw it away.  As for dried beans: I am going the tinned route next time, or cooking and freezing in advance as per advice offered.

In summary:  it was alright.  Nuff said. 

Moooving on.

Today we took a National Trust Trip Out.  As per, it was pissing freezing with a nasty wind nipping up your nether regions, but we went to a luverly place - Knightshayes Court.  And, as per, photographs inside were punishable by hanging, so I only have these to offer:

Oliver actually got to take his coat off here, so think the midday sun must have made an appearance, bringing the outside temperature to a balmy 3 degrees centigrade.

 

 

Imagine walking out through your back door to be faced with this.  It really gives such a sense of freedom and space.

 

Fancied a collection of NT mugs - starting with this one.  I am hoping that all other NT places do them as I visit, or it will be a very select collection indeed.

 

 

Tonight we are having sausages for tea.  I can cook them. 

 







not enough hours in the day

I have been planning, waiting and watching for an opportunity to cook up 'The Ultimate 10 bean chilli'.  It's a Waitrose recipe, using, weirdly, a whole packet of their '10 bean mix'.   I am not a great cooker of beans, as it requires thinking ahead and a shedload of available time in the kitchen the following day, but the picture in the magazine looked bright and bursting with health, so I kept getting out the beans and fondling them longingly.  Ooer missus. 

Soaked beans:

Yesterday, I spotted my window.  I started soaking the beans at 4.30pm in readiness for the great bean cook-up this morning.  Mark went out at about 10.30 and I kid you not, I have been stood up farting about in the kitchen ever since.  I am frazzled with the whole thing - I'm not even convinced it will be worth all this effort.  I somehow didn't realise that after the great soak they would require 10 minutes fast boiling (so I don't poison all and sundry I suppose) and then a further HOUR simmering  before we even get to the proper cooking, which demands another hour!!  Bloody hellfire. 

Festering away:

The quantities involved are so vast I have used about forty pots until I reached cauldron size.  I don't want to even think about the amount of fossil fuel I have wasted - I hate boiling and simmering food. 

Somewhere in the middle of the boiling/simmering debacle,  I had an optimistic notion it would be a Good Idea to rustle up flapjacks.  I think they are underdone,  as they are damp, sticky and require a spoon to eat them - but they are edible, which is always a bit of a surprise. 

I shall report back on the chilli.  Assuming it doesn't put me in hospital first.

what does one do with stuff?

I find myself this afternoon with a few hours to spare. 

To spare.

And I find that instead of having a long mental list of things of things I want to do, I am overwhelmed with a long mental list of things I don't want to do.  Boy oh boy, my glass is feeling half empty, and it's quite pathetic, even by my standards.

The sun in shining (pardon me?) and it is technically warm enough to go out into the garden for gardening purposes (yuk),  but as I am going on to work after I pick Oliver up, and as I am nice and clean and not at all sweaty and muddy right now, the gardening is a no no. 

This self same sun is showing up all the dust in the house, made more by the amount of crap which builds up because a) there is no room to put anything and b) Mark is a stacker, not a sorter.  And I have just wasted half an hour stamping around yelling at inanimate piles of crap covered in dust.  Because that will help. NOT.

I just want to go out so I don't have to feel guilty for not doing any cleaning, but there is nowhere I want to go.  Bloody hell. 

So I decided to try and sate my guilt by clearing out some stuff.  Which is actually easier than clearing up, I'm sure you will agree. 

Or not.

Sitting here at ye olde computer,  I am faced with shelves of my books - my personal ones I simply cannot part with and read again and again.

 

Then I thought I could sort out all the photos.  These are the ones not on computer, but in packets and boxes.  I was thinking I may go through them and get an album to hold millions of 6x4 pics, then Oliver could sit and flick through them at leisure for pleasure.

Then my eyes fell on these.

These are my scrapbook albums, which are a mahoosive space gobbler, not looked at by anyone, at all, ever, and I cannot see any point in keeping them at all - BUT - but.  They represent years of a hobby I loved and I think they are pretty nice, actually.  The jury is out on them though. 

Moving on - photos.  And memorabilia.  What the flippin eck to do with it all??????

What do people do with their stuff?

I am seriously toying with getting a gurt big airtight plastic box (how I love thee O Really Useful Boxes) chucking in ALL the photos, ALL drawings and bits made by Oliver as a littlie and ALL things from my schooldays and past which I have not yet been wrested from and 'filing' it creatively in the loft. 

When I was a kid, Mum kept all our photos in a biscuit tin.  Occasionally we would get out 'the tin' and wallow in memories, passing round these photos to smile over.  The tin still exists, and did ok for us. 

Maybe I'm overthinking the whole thing.