Thursday night

It’s Thursday night right now…at least in the UK.

Thursday nights are Grey’s Anatomy nights.
Thursday nights are knitting nights.
Thursday nights are girly nights at my friend K’s house.

Thursday nights were great. We’d sit around waiting for Grey’s to start. We’d talk and catch up, we’d knit and talk about knitting and where I’d gone wrong this time. We’d discuss the allotment or bitch about work. We’d crack open a bottle of wine or perhaps just have a cup of tea depending on the mood. There would be laughing and gossip and planning of excursions. There would be knitting lessons, bead talk and the odd foray into crochet. The boys would disappear down the workshop and we’d be left in peace to watch our show, which might not be the most influence show on TV, but contains some great storylines, good acting and some extremely dreamy actors!! Thursday nights were the best nights of the week in the UK.

But in Australia…it’s Friday morning.

Sausage Love

It was well over a year ago now that myself and Karen attended a sausage making course. We had high hopes of being able to make our own sausages...not for profit but for fun. However our talent at procrastination got the better of us and despite having all the equipment we never got around to it.............until now!!!!!

We decided that Saturday was as good a day as any, got a hold of the meat, dug up the mincer/stuffer and got stuck in. It was a steep learning curve just to work out the best way to mince the meat and after that, looking at the 21 pounds of mince that we had yet to transform into sausages, I'll admit, we experienced a few doubts about getting it done.

Still we rolled up our sleaves and got to stuffing. The first lot of sausages were slow going however it was very exciting to see them forming up into recognisable shapes. We seemed to be doing it right.

Of course the jokes and comments from bystanders were colourful to say the least. It's a very visual and hands on process with the manual mincer/stuffer.

And in the end we got them all done and twisted in to sausage looking shapes. Below you can see them drying out.
We made plain pork, pork and leek and lamb and mint. We completely covered the place in sausage meat and exhausted ourselves in the process but we were rather proud of our efforts in the end and it was one of the most fun days I've had in ages. Really satisfying and I'll definitely be doing it again.
Look just like the real ones huh!
They are the best sausages I've ever tasted!!!

When friends drop in!

I love entertaining. I love when people come over.....particularly when it's people I haven't seen for years and we have time to sit down and talk for ages. So when Ali & Matt said they'd like to come and stay for a night while they were in the UK, I bounced around with joy for ages. I'd forgotten how exciting it was to go to the airport to pick someone up.

Anyway they arrived, we picked them up and took them out for an English Pub lunch!

Where we let both Matt's change the tire on our car!!

Then we showed off some of the English countryside and played at being Maria.
Then we bought doughnuts and mucked around on the Pier!
And even won something!
Before going home, doing some washing, opening a bottle of wine and chatting long into the night. It was great! We finally got to meet Ali's "Matt" and we agree that he is rather nice!! We got to show off some of our much loved town and we got to chill out and catch up which was fantastic.

The only sad thing is that they had to leave....

Other than travelling...

I have photos…but as the title indicates they are not travel related. I’m still going through those ones but should have some up this week.
Apologies in advance for the formatting. I just can't get the photos to stay where I want them to! Keep scrolling...

The day after we got home from Ireland we went to Ladies Day at the Brighton Races. It wasn’t Ascot I guess but it was a damn good excuse to dress up and wear hats (strangely not as easy as it sounds) and have a great day. I’ve mentioned it before and so I won’t go into it but here are some pics for you to look at.


This is us pretending we're all posh n stuff and trying to keep our knees together in a lady like fashion!












This is our fancy buffet lunch!











Me watching the race!













As you know we've had some guests over from Italy...here they are!












and their little boy who is quite possibly the cutest little boy in the world!! Dontya think?














I mentioned the wedding we went to recently…what I didn’t mention is what happened as we were leaving. I saw my first wild hedgehog!!!! Not a big deal for some perhaps but it was quite exciting for me and I jumped out the car and snapped this. However they move really, really fast. I was lucky to get a shot at all once he got moving!




And finally a brief mention of the travelling. When we were in Galway guess what I found???? KNITING!!!

Out of the blog closet

Once upon a time I used to have a web site that I kept updated with our comings and goings and travel plans. It was largely so friends and family around the world could keep in touch.

However it was quite hefty on the maintenance side of things and quickly became more of a chore for me than anything else. Eventually I stopped updating it…at the time fully intending to revamp and remodel. However in the end it was much more fun to do other stuff and live my life and so the website died.
But my desire for an online presence didn’t and the search for an alternative began. Somewhere where I could share my life and thoughts with people and display the photos of places we’ve been.

I looked at many different webpage sites, packages, formats and templates and they all shouted “maintenance” at me. (strange thing to shout huh!) It became clear I was looking in the wrong place and eventually I turned to the blog world.

I was not convinced it was for me. I tried a few out. I almost liked some of them and then I stumbled across blogger. It wasn’t love at first site but I was intrigued and since then it’s grown into a kind and generous friendship where they do all the work…and I do all the blogging!! And you gotta love that.

Although I was able to post photos into the blog the sheer number of photos we take meant that it wasn't a pratical way to display them. So I set out to find me a site for the photos that was when I came across Smugmug whom I love with an all abiding passion! They rock.

So there it is…one blog, one photo page and no maintenance!!!! Sounds like fun huh!

You might be wondering why I’m going over all of this. Well…I’ve just let all those friends and family in on the blog secret and I figured I'd explain a little of how it all came about! Now everyone I know is aware of this place of mine…no pressure huh!

Welcome guys, have a look around...hope you like it!

Monday-itis

Another Monday morning dawns on our collective groans as we realise that yet another week has begun and the weekend is once again as far away as it can be.
But let us not be down hearted…I had a great weekend! And now for your reading enjoyment and in an effort to delay anything resembling work, I shall relive it for you!

Friday night I went to Music Park 2007, The Eighties. It was a great night. It threatened rain but held off until the very end and by then no one cared. The audience was predominantly older…as you’d expect but there was a strange

feeling of unity there. Everyone reliving memories of where they were and what they were doing when this music was around and popular and the whole event was incredibly friendly. It was fantastic!!
Now I was still quite young in the eighties and have to say that the names of quite a few of the artists performing were not familiar to me. However I knew a lot of the songs. I guess I was too young to be into the bands thing but old enough to hear the music…particularly towards the late eighties.
Anyway we sang, we danced, we cheered and we got rained on! Great night

Incidentally if you don’t recognise the artists/bands in the ever so slightly blurry photos they are from top to bottom, Altered Image, Limahl & Paul Young.

Saturday we ventured up to the wonderful world that is the allotment of Sally & Steve where we picked raspberries, admired potatoes (then picked/dug them too) and took a few photos…as you do! As soon as we got home the potatoes turned into potato salad which we lived on for the rest of the weekend! YUM.

That afternoon we hiked up to Crawley where
there’s a new hobbycraft store just open. Makes a nice change from the 2 hour drive to the Southampton one! Spent an hour or so wandering around thinking of all the crafty things I could do. Bought a book on felting….it’s got some lovely bags in it that I want to try and they seem easy enough.

Watched a couple of episodes of Doctor Who Saturday night, we’d taped them previously. One of these was titled ‘Blink’. Dunno if anyone's seen it but if you haven’t: don’t. Well do, but don’t. I mean it’s the best one I’ve seen to date but it’s also the scariest and you’ll never sleep again. Freaked me right out but so, so good.

Sitting in front of the TV means knitting and I got a huge chunk of the right front done. I remembered to take some photos and will post them tomorrow. Not that it looks like anything much yet.

Sunday it rained…from start to finish. SO I made some chicken stock, a blueberry cake and a chicken roast as well as a rhubarb & raspberry crumble. Comfort food!

Not overly exciting but not a bad weekend really and for once it felt like a long one rather than the “blink and you’ll miss it” kind that I normally have!! (blink….shudder)

Hope everyone has noticed that I've got several photos in the same post...almost (not really) behaving! Now I just have to figure out why the spacing with the text is a little out of kilter and I'll be set.
Hope your weekend was as good as mine! I’ll post some more photos tomorrow.

The wit has left the building

Is it just me or is it getting harder to write Birthday Cards. The journey doesn’t end when you finally find a good one. No, then you have to think of something witty and meaningful to write in it. And of course, not one to do things the easy way, I have always had the need compulsion to fill every scrap of available space, every inch of clean, bright whiteness with words of wisdom and comfort and complete drivel?? Those of you that know me can bear testament to this. Manys the birthday you’ve sat in a corner forlornly trying to decipher my scribble while people celebrate your birthday without you!
I vaguely remember once being able to dashing off witty and meaningful cards at the drop of a hat. Now days I struggle to phrase Happy Birthday correctly and buy my cards weeks in advance (when I remember) in order to have them done in time.
Have the words deserted me or am I just making things to hard for myself? Is it too much to expect a lowly birthday card to change the world?

Of course I'm in the middle of a Birthday Crisis....or rather I was last night. A friend’s blank and stark white card (that sounds strange) had been taunting me for days and it was finally crunch time. With no inspiration and no wittyness to be found what was I to do?

I resorted to niceness!!!!

Yup...when in doubt, forget the funny and tell them how great you think they are. Works every time!!
I also managed to wheedle the knitting in there by gifting the birthday girl with a homemade shawl in a lovely fluffy shade of blue. I forgot to take a picture before giving it away so you’ll have to wait till I’ve made another one but it was received with the ooo-ing and ah-ing it rightfully deserved!

In fact there are no pictures on the blog yet at all as yet.I do plan to get around to stuff like that but its early days yet and don’t know how to do it. I promise to try to learn this weekend!!