weekend – Page 5

weekend 14/15 feb 2010

Nothing posted for a week – shocking. That’s because there’s nothing much to report.

We had a quiet weekend – strolled over to the Library on Saturday afternoon to return, renew and collect books. It rained on us, of course. Did a load of winemaking stuff, which is surprisingly time consuming. Slumped

On Sunday we went to the market for fruit and veg, and were home by 10 a.m.! Cooked a huge fry up, dithered whether to walk down and have a look at Boyes, and decided that the weather was too changeable to do a 4 mile round trip, so sat at home and watched the Olympics and other assorted televisual wallpaper. Had a nice baking afternoon accompanied by Johnnie Walker on Radio 2. Ate too many cinnamon buns. Slumped. Quite nice to have a really lazy Sunday.

And now – it’s snowing again. Bah.

weekend 6/7 Feb 2010

“Quiet”, would best sum it up, I think. Stuck a ham hock in the slow cooker in the morning, then took the car out for the first time in a fortnight(!) for the monthly Big Shop, and sallied forth to Makro (mainly for cat food, plus some other bits), Pets at Home (for cat litter), and Asda, for the stuff we couldn’t get in Makro, and also I wanted a basil plant. We bought a few bits and pieces, and forgot the bloody basil plant. Then to Grain on Newland Avenue, which we don’t like much, but is the only purveyor of Pete’s blackcurrant juice we can find in the area, and the butcher and greengrocer.

On Saturday afternoon, Pete put up a hanging bracked for the £3 hanging basket (planted, too!) we bought at Walton Street Market on Wednesday. And then we slumped, apart from trying to work out how Reactive Cooking got hacked, and how to fix it … fix it we did, but how it happened is a bit of a worry.

Watched the last half of Independence Day on C4, which was entirely down to inertia, as the DVD is on the shelf!

On Sunday, we:

cooked a big fry up for brunch
made a slow cooker’s full of Gujerati beef (recipe to follow)
turned 5kg of carrots into wine – well, the start of wine; a couple of quid from Makro for a huge bag, had to be done
made some carrot soup with the stock from the ham hock
made cheese scones for Sunday tea
bottled 11 bottles of red wine

We also got up to date with Brothers and Sisters, which we really like – this season might have new writers, because it seems much wittier this time round.

And that was that. Tonight we’re off to the Eagle on Anlaby Road to investigate the Hull Transition movement – we go out far more often here than we ever did in Long Ashton!

weekend 30/31 jan 2010

Up bright and early – well, ish – made a batch of blueberry muffins, consumed bacon and black pudding butties, then walked into town. It is *so* nice to be able to go to all these places on foot. We took the barometer to the clock hospital, but they said they couldn’t fix it – ghod knows why not, as it didn’t look that difficult to replace the glass to us, but ho hum. I shall be upset if I can’t find anyone to do it (it broke in the move).

We had a mooch round the old part of Hull – there’s some wonderful architecture there, and some of the city is medieval; must go down with a camera on a nice Sunday afternoon. Then we met (most of) the rest of the fledgling No2ID group in The Mission pub, had a meeting to discuss strategies and what we do next, met a chap who is standing for the Greeens, and lives 8 doors down from us, and then we all ventured out into the freezing cold and set up a stall in the centre.

It went better than I thought it might – we got several pages of petitions signed, gave away loads of leaflets, and engaged plenty of people in conversation. After what seemed like *hours*, but wasn’t, Carla did a tea run and I brought forth the muffins, and we managed to carry on a little longer,

On the way home, we stocked up with dried beans and organic bread flour and other stuff from a shop we discovered in South Street that sells them loose – hurrah! Not a huge range, but better than buying them packaged. And we stopped off in Argos to buy a carpet sweeper; the cats are scattering litter all over the upstairs, and I’m bored with carting the Roomba round the house every day. A tenner for the sweeper seemed like a bargain, and it did a cracking job. Needless to say, the Tribe have been neatness itself today …. We had a lazy evening after that, and I made some cappuccino cupcakes as a test run for next month’s No2ID meet, and some polenta bread.

This morning, we ventured over to Walton Street market and did the fruit and veg shopping, and then pottered round the house. Someone was meant to be collecting a Freecycle item this afternoon, but never turned up, which made me seethe. Cooked a roast chickie! with cabbage, leeks, carrots and roast spuds. Slumped. Ate coffee cupcakes. Bzzt.

we went to Lincoln …

arch at Lincoln Cathedral
Originally uploaded by ramtops

… via Grimsby (we didn’t stop), and Cleethorpes, where we breakfasted on tea, sausage, bacon, egg, fried bread, beans and hash brown for £4 each.

Cleethorpes bore that unmistakeable air of British east coast resorts out of season – I’m very familiar with it, having lived in Great Yarmouth for some years. I rather like these places out of season, and it has a lovely beach, with some rather disconsolate donkeys waiting to pimp their rides.

On the way to Grimsby we spotted a completely barking building, and stopped off to have a look; it was Thornton Abbey, closed until April, but will be well worth a look in the spring, I think. Those monks did themselves proud, there’s no doubt.

We found somewhere in Lincoln to park for £6 for more than four hours – I’m torn between saying "Six quid? That’s practically an armful", and "Six quid – that’s a bargain for city parking". Anyway, we paid it. For my own reference, it was in Westgate, close to both castle and cathedral.

We went and looked at the cathedral, but we didn’t pay and go round it – that’ll be for another day, as will the castle. The cathedral is *huge* – I had no idea – and utterly impressive. The city is very like Norwich (which is unsurprising when you think about it), and had a lovely feel to it. Although when people say Lincolnshire is flat, they’re clearly excluding Lincoln itself; some of those hills are lethal!.

We had tea and teacake in nice tea shoppe, walked along the dock area, all round the old part of town, before meeting up with Dave and Linda (WANOLJ) for an early chinese buffet at the Laughing Buddha, to celebrate his birthday. Pete got a new hat, as his was very motheaten, and I bought a lovely bright red soft woolly scarf, both from the Edinburgh Woollen Mill. And we got some barley flour from a health food shop, and some salmon for the Tribe in the pound shop.

Home by 8.30, and a lovely day out – we shall be going *there* again, that’s for sure.

weekend 16/17 jan 2010

Visit from Daniel the Polish Builder on Saturday morning, to collect the extension reel and light he left when he was doing the loft ladder. <lj user="perlmonger"> will quite miss these! Pete rewired the extension, as it was distinctly non-safe. Instructed Daniel, upon his request, on the basics of home winemaking.

Pete then decided to wire in the second under-cupboard light in the kitchen, meaning that I couldn’t do any of what I’d planned to do, so I spodded for a bit, before constructing bacon sammidges for lunch.

We then went to run some errands – first to Newlands Ave to the only (and not very good) health food shop we’ve found in Hull that isn’t Holland and Barrett, as we needed muesli. Thus far we have failed to locate a scoop shop here, which is very annoying. We popped into a gifty shop called Zebra for a look, and Pete was hailed by the woman who owns it, and who recognised him after about 13 years!, so a long chat ensued. A wander up Newlands to the greengrocer, and some plums on special offer at 2 bags for £1, so I bought four bags to make some wine, then had to go over to the home brew shop in east Hull to get some grape concentrate. And another fermenting bucket and some chemicals … And then to Pets At Home, for cat litter, and a small scratching post for Ron, in the vain hope that he’ll now leave the wicker baskets alone, and some cat grass – see upcoming post on the cats’ blog for more on that.

Home then, where we chopped loads of veg to make a) soup, b) moussaka and c) a vat of chilli. The moussaka was constructed and consumed for Saturday’s supper, and was delicious; we had lamb mince for a change (we usually use lentils for moussaka), and 1 lb of lamb made enough for two moussakas, so a tub has gone in the freezer. We listened to the three CDs from the Phil Beer box set that arrived last week, then had a reply of the most recent Show of Hands album, then stuck the Neuros on random as usual – a TV free evening!

Sunday showed promise of decent weather at last, so we set off for Withernsea. I found a free tide app for the iPhone, which is dead handy, and we had a tramp along the beach, and then a long walk along the promenade, before repairing to a local cafe for steak and ale pie ‘n’ chips (for me) and a big yorkshire pud with sossidge and onion gravy (for Pete). Home then to make the last batch of chilli, a long and complex process, but well worth the trouble. Supper was muffins with cloudberry jam, followed by the last of the christmas cake, while I caught up with some rubbish TV.

A very nice weekend, all told.

Summer Camp 2009

Even the teddies get pissed ..

We soldier on, us stalwarts, now 12 years before the mast at Summer Camp. It’s a miracle we survive, really. There was a poignancy to it this year, as two couples in our gang of such great friends are moving to New Zealand, and we will all miss them so much …

This year’s involved, amongst other things

Budley and his little purple ukulele (no, not a euphimism). This encouraged several of the iPhone users amongst the attendees to download the ukulele app from the iPhone store, and attempt to emulate UOGB. Not that successfuly, sadly
a trip to the cash and carry on Friday, involving Geoff, Budley, Stick, Charlton and self. The trolley was piled high with all manner of things, all of them extremely unhealthy, save for a small pack of sweetcorns, to ensure we had a balanced diet
Lots of camp (not that sort) cooking in my Huge Wok, which I shall write up later on my food blog
Rain. And thunder, lightening, fog, wind, and other seasonal August Bank Holiday weather. Thankfully and mysteriously, Saturday stayed dry and the sun even shone for a bit, which was nice. As for the rest – moist.
Dark ‘n’ Stormies; dark rum poured over fiery ginger beer. We got through three bottles of rum, and some of us were very merry indeed. I blame the dark ‘n’ stormies for …
Dancing. Oh yes. This is a new departure for TWSC and at least one of our number was Very Grumpy Indeed about the choice of music. But we wanted to dance, and so we did. There was a lot of Abba, I recall. And “It’s Raining Men”, and a great many other cheesy but great party tracks. We must thank Leslie for this – a TWSC virgin, as it were, he took his iPhone into the music man’s van and took over, and I’m very glad he did. A fab time was had by all. Most of us were really quite pissed, of course, but never mind. There are photos, and even video (ohmigod) but I’m not telling you where. Obviously. The sight of a bunch of rufty tufty bikers doing Agadoo will haunt me for years.

And that was it. Another wonderful weekend, despite the weather ghod’s little jokes. And I was reminded, yet again, how lucky perlmonger and I are with our friends who, discovering that we are going through a difficult time (more to follow), rallied round in a way that left me tearful.

As always, my favourite weekend of the year – thanks, guys.

a soggy weekend

perlmonger with an owl
Originally uploaded by ramtops

We still weren’t well, really, so not much was done. Friday night saw us at a “bring your own” supper party. We brought chicken wings, and a stilton and walnut quiche, and just as well, as nobody else had brought anything apart from a bowl of rice salad and some puddings! We didn’t stay long, as perlmonger was drooping; I bore him home, and he was in bed by 9 p.m., and fast asleep when I went to check on him at 10.

On Saturday we did pretty much nothing, apart from an amble up to the Local Shoppe for some essentials – veg, milk, cream, big box of Maltesers … We spent the afternoon slumped in front of the television, with laptops tohand. Managed to construct a rather splendid pork stir fry, and a nectarine and bramble flan, of which more later.

Sunday dawned bright and clear ^H^H dreary and moist once more, but we dragged ourselves up to Ashton Court for an event put on by the council to celebrate 50 years of public ownership (or something). I’m ashamed to say we took the car, even though it’s only about half an hour’s walk, but we still weren’t feeling great, and getting caught in the rain was something I’d rather avoid. In the event, it’s just as well …

It was damp when we left, started raining just as we arrived at about 12.30, and *pissing* it down when we left at 4. But we had an enjoyable time – the raptor chap was terrific, despite his faux mediaeval costume; he really engaged with his audience, particularly the children, and some small persons (and indeed, one larger one) got a change to get up very close and personal with various birds.

We consumed roast pig innabun with [whisper] chips, and then had a cuppatea and a piece of very nice walnut and coffee cake. When we got home we had to hang the waterproofs up over the bath to drip, and my boots might be dry now. Cheese scones for supper and copious mugs of tea.

And now, Monday. Bah.

what I did at the weekend

Woke up unconscionably early on Saturday morning, and got up at 5.15 – this meant the day was a bit of a washout, energy-wise. I did take my bicycle out for the first time in a couple of years (I think). I went to the other end of the cycle path and back, probably about 3 miles or so in total, and it was hell on my legs, but my breathing was hugely better, so I think it was just a question of using yet another set of muscles. I shall do it more often.

Other than that, Saturday was pretty lazy – perlmonger made a great start on the Great Garage Clearout, then went for a "quick bike ride" at 4.15, from which he returned at 7.30 p.m. .. too late to order the takeaway we’d planned, so I cooked a courgette pasta bake while he encountered ferocious gorse bushes on the Portishead coast path; serves him right.

Sunday … I don’t think I did anything much, apart from the monthly pub quiz on Sunday, in which we came fourth. Oh, I went for a mooch around Bemster, but it was Shut.

Monday was up early to go and set up the LibDem tombola stand at the North Somerset Agricultural Show. The weather was far from benign, but the crowds turned out, and I think it went well – we did a couple of hours as tombola barkers and ticket sellers, and actually quite enjoyed it, although I confess we buggered off home before it was stall take-down time. I bought some very nice deck shoes, and a pair of silver earrings, and we both bought new warm Sherwood jackets – not matching, as that would be entirely too Howard and Hilda. We both needed them – Pete has a wax jacket, but it’s very bulky, and I have one of those dual waterproof/fleece things, but it doesn’t feel right, somehow. These jackets are light and warm, and just the ticket. Also got an aloe vera stick deodorant and some aloe propolis cream, had a big sossidge and onion in a bun for breakfast, and a cupful of fruit salad for lunch.

Somewhat foolishly, I decided to wear my MBT boots for the day, and I hadn’t been out in them for ages. After about 7 hours on my feet, I had horrible aches in my hips and outer thighs, so that was yet another set of unused muscles protesting. I had a long soak in the bath before I went to bed, hit the pillow at 9 p.m., and slept through till 7 this morning. I had planned to go swimming, but it was too late then – if you’re not at the pool by 7, all the lanes are gone.

This afternoon, I’m off to the hairdresser for a wash and brush up – now I have my new eyes, I fancy a change, so we shall see what they wreak.

weekend!

We will be trogging over to Basingstoke, staying in the luxury of the Winchester Road Travelodge, to attend Dave ‘n’ Rox’s farewell party; they’re taking six months to travel round Europe in a camper van with their two children, and then they’re off to Rox’ native New Zealand. For good.

We have already put a shovel and a bag of gritty cat litter in the car, and will be taking blankets and chocolate and water Just In Case. So you can expect The Big Thaw to set in tomorrow and make us look like idiots, and I don’t care.

Other than that, absolutely nothing beckons, expect possibly a trip to the Heston Blumenthal Ickle Thief at Popham, just because we’re almost passing.

weekend 29/1-1/2/09

Friday afternoon brought a phone call from a friend – “are you going to see Richard Thompson tonight”? Well, of *course* we were, so we decided to join them for an early dinner, and avail ourselves of their free, secure parking 5 minutes walk from Colsonall. Which was nice.

Budokan was full, so we repaired to Kathmandu, where I took on a Duck Makalu, which was delicious. And Pat and Dave insisted on picking up the tab, saying that we often cook for them, so that was exceedingly nice of them.

Richard Thompson – well, if you don’t know by now … I’ve seen him play in concert halls, at folk festivals and, on a fab occasion last year, in a pubby sort of venue in Southampton. I’ve seen him solo, with Danny Thompson, with a band, acoustic, electric. This was his 1000 Years of Music tour, which is ace – we have the DVDs already, but he’d mixed the programme up a bit. Extraordinary how whatever he plays, be it medieval or Nelly Furtado, it is unmistakeably RT. And the Beatles medley at the end were fab.

The rest of the weekend was house stuff – we got the cooker cleaned properly, taking it all to bits and taking its knobs off (ooh er) and so forth. I cooked roast pork belly for Saturday supper, and we watched Mamma Mia (how wonderful is that?) and Strictly Ballroom (which is probably my favourite film evah).

perlmonger cooked a nice fry up for Sunday brunch (bubble/squeak, black pudding, bacon, egg), and we had a thai veg curry from the freezer before sallying out to the Legion for the pub quiz with Pat&Dave again, where we achieved our goal of coming second (if you come first, you have to buy the raffle prizes).

So that was that. Not much sner here, sadly, but more forecast tomorrow, so I live in hope. If it comes down, I’m taking a couple of hours off and going for a yomp across the fields – we don’t see enough of the white stuff here.