Dangerous

So today it has all started.

The diet began at breakfast. My organic fruit, meat and veg arrived yesterday. So there was organic sausages with our healthy bacon and poached eggs. The last of our shrooms were cooked up with an organic onion. Then there was a glass of rice milk and a couple of little cheeses for my dairy and some toast for fibre.

I just hope I can keep the momentum up.... these breakfasts will only occur at the weekend so I have to find another way during the week and that is always where I struggle.

Now I have to plan the menu for the next little while so I can freeze the rest of the meat we don't need. And over all this looms the gym and I can feel myself start to get a bit nervous, even though the person doing my induction is a mate and F will be there too....

Life is also prompting me to get a swimming cosi. Well in fact I have no choice. A hen night in arrangements will contain a trip to a spa. I have found these things called swim dresses and I am going to get one, even though they are not overly cheap. I need to feel like the nasty skin at the tops of my legs is not fully on view. Of course losing weight should help my skin condition too. I have deformed sweat glands that get blocked easily so rubbing is enough to cause problems. i can't imagine having legs that don't rub.

Mel has been talking about dangerous thoughts and it was immediately obvious that this is one of mine. I can be thin, fit and healthy. That thought, taken seriously just requires so much. So much pain, so much effort, a good dose of misery too, in the short(ish) term at least. Oh and deprivation.... my poor sweet tooth!

On another note. Saw this video earlier and was just so impressed with the way the words have been used.

The Never Never

I feel mixed up - ten parts beaten, ten parts tired, ten parts despairing, ten parts fat and ten parts unfit.... there are other things I feel too, but they buoy me up rather than weighing me down. I need to lose weight and now is the time. I have to do what needs to be done.

I played on the Wii on Friday. Watching Biggest Loser, I had realised that Wii Fit was a little tame - i don't even really work up a sweat. I bought a second hand copy of the Biggest Loser game and I bounced around. I found it so hard. It is designed to burn fat and I kinda appear fit enough it seems to get myself into the moderately fit category - but I just don't have the stamina to work out at that pace. I felt light headed and i sat down. And then I despaired.

I then had the nasty thought that maybe I needed to get myself back to the gym. I know people at the gym, I have friends who are qualified gym instructors there. Two of them were at my wedding. I know they would help me. if I went back, I would not have a personal trainer, with me every second, but I would have the next best thing - someone watching over me with a personal interest in helping me.

F also has membership still and would bemore than happy to have a reason to start going again. he loves exercise when he gets in to it. He needs to start getting away from that computer again.

We talked this morning and I told him my thoughts and how I was feeling. So I am going to join the gym again. I have ordered some tracky bottoms. I have the good trainers with the support I require. I am going to facebook my friend and go mep at him. I am going to book my gym intro thing.

But I have always preferred diet as a means of getting thin and we can't neglect this aspect. F has always liked the way I get behind it all and start planning stuff but I need his help with the doing - because i will feel pretty awful after the first few days and my energy levels will suffer for the next few weeks.

We decided against diet clubs. We have been before and with F's shifts it gets complicated. It also takes up a lot of time to hear how other people ar getting on. And while this is supportive and good, it is also expensive for two of us and we on't really enjoy it.... So we have decided to go it alone, but use our old books from when we did go.

What I decided to do, although F was ambivalent, is to go back to the veg boxes. I like them because you get an unpredictable variety which helps (mostly) keep your veg eating out a rut. You also have the challenge of using it all up before the next one comes and working out meals that craftily use it all without having to buy extras from the supermarket.

I also elected to get some fruit and meat. i love the meat boxes. Good quality meat. The price of meat in the supermarkets currently is such that these boxes are more competitive than they used to be. Mostly because they are not full of prime cuts. i went for two smaller boxes - this gives us more variety without huge cuts of meat that encourage us to eat too much meat. I got a winter warmers box full of things for stewing and this will include odd joints I have never, ever had the courage to try cooking with before - like ox tail. This is a good thing. i also went for a quick and easy box with sausages and burgers and the like. Most of the meat will sit in the freezer.....

So I am getting myself well placed to begin this ofensive against ill health and flab. Using everything we have done and learnt over the years in one big combined battle. I know it will feel like I am losing to begin with. I know I will want to give up. but I can't. I need this too much. i want to live my life how I want to live it and for that, i need to be a lot thinner.

I have to start living as if I was thin and doing the things I want to do now, rather than waiting for the never never. It is going to hurt though. i don't like all this really. not at all.

Hard Choices

Current dieting wisdom seems to be 80% good 20% bad. I could handle this. Mostly good but still allowed my chocolate and caramel etc etc. Nice. Not so likely to fall off that sot of diet.

But there is a reason I have not ever managed it. IBS. I also think IBS is what has made me fat as well. Just a little diet change like healthy snacks at work has really improved things for me. But also made them much, much worse. Now things I was eating just fine last month cause me immense discomfort. A bit of mayo in my sandwich is now a huge problem. A bar of chocolate makes my feet hurt. And on it goes.

i always forget why my diets fail in between times.

Simply put. If I innoculate my body everyday with bad foods, it deals with them well enough that I am only a little bit ill, but I am little ill everyday. As soon as I start being passibly good, then I am no longer innoculating my body with the bad foods and it forgets how to deal with them, then I am really, really ill.

Being good is very time consuming and I have never gotten it right enough that I could survive on it long term. The new snacking regime is really helping though and is definitely another brick in the wall.

Learning how to exclude dairy products from my diet is another very large brick....

I guess I just have to focus on the good points - my body is better from this small change. My ankles are less swoolen. I have lost a little weight. My digestive system is functioning better (even if it's temper tantrums are much bigger).

Keep going.... I have a brain, surely I can figure this all out?

Digging in the Dirt (and planting seeds)

Life moves on and the wheel keeps turning whether I am here or not. Often, my absence here means something has grabbed my interest and this is definitely true right now....

I signed up to Ancestry and started tracing my family tree. Oh how fascinating!

My Dad's Dad's side is not too tricky, an unusual surname and a helping had in the form of a pretty good idea of first names as my Dad has already put in a lot of work on this. Eventually I will get his tree in the post and that will help even more. I have already found things he didn't know though - finding where a lady has gotten married can be tricky without national searches...

My Dad's Mum's side has not even gotten a look in yet.... but it wil...

My Mum's Mum's side is what I have been looking at most recently and is proving to be fascinating but tricky. My Great great great Grandfather was from Scotland and he suddenly appears in the part of the country the family then stuck to through generations. Unfortunately he has not put which part of Scotland on any census. To add to the difficulties but also to make him more interesting, he appears to have been a soldier and it looks as if he was posted to Ireland where he married my great great great Grandma, then a few years later had my Great great grandfather in Ireland before touring all over the place. They eventually settled in the family location, which is where his wife was from originally. So how did they meet? Why did she go to Ireland as an unmarried person and then stay there? I believe the sudden marriage and then delay before the first child is down to the Crimean War, they married just before he left but she did not get pregnant until he returned. I feel an urge to start an interest in military history of the time..... Maybe I can deduce some stuff.....

My Mum's Dad's side has been fascinating but tricky. The paternal branch is just impossible! They moved around and have a common name and some things appear to have happened so they just jump and then they can not be plucked out from all the others of the same name.... but the maternal branch.... very fascinating! My great great grandfather was a commercial traveller / manager / office speciality, whatever that all adds up to, but he did travel, he even went to Chicago, but I have no idea why.... My great great great Grandma was it seems of mixed English and French descent and hails from Guernsey....

So you never know what you are going to find for sure and it is addictive.....

As well as all this, i came down with a cold. Last night I was craving hot comfort food so I stewed pork belly with tomatoes, onions and corn, flavoured with sun dried tomatoes, porcini mushrooms and chipototles. It was lovely and it burned and i feel better for it.

A friend found this great idea called Graze.com where they send you four punnets of natural foods to graze on, randomly selected from their range according to certain options and likes and dislikes etc. I love this idea and hope it might help me little... I have ordered my first box and sent a gift one to my Mum as well. Anyone else in the UK wanting to try, let me know, I have a promo code I can email....

The magpies are doing well. befor ethe wedding they had been looking scraggly and their feathers were a mess, with a great ring of them missig round the neck. I was even worried they might not survive the winter! I returned though to find their moulting complete and they are resplendent in their winter plummage now and happy to wait by my car for the odd snack as normal.

The wedding seems to have seen the last of the Summer warmth. Autumn has come crashing in with a chill in the air. My bug has left me feeling cold and right now I feel out of sync. My body too tired from the wedding to keep up with the sudden change. I shall catch up.

Oh and I found a website entitled Society for Shamanic Practitioners. It only lists seven drumming circles for the whole of the UK. There is one in Cornwall and I am really hoping it is my end.... I have enquired... I think this would be a very good thing for me....

Also thinking of setting up a blog just for my dreams....

Care A Lot

I am not really doing Bloglandia justice right now. Overtime, tiredness, social activities and wedding planning are dragging me away.... I have a whole post I wish to write on some stuff I have been thinking about and I shall... but not when I have to leave for work in five mins....

Even little things seem to be taking on epic proportions!

I want nice non-alcoholic and alcoholic punches for the guests with a raspberry and rose falvour. Sunday saw me at a friends with raspberries and rose syrup, pureeing and sampling with different accompaniments.... Last night saw me making raspberry syrup which turned out surprisingly well and is actually really easy! and delicious. And here I am actually drinking some! But now I have to experiment with fizzy water and lemonade and vodka and fruit wines and cheap sparkly wine and and and....

You would think a little drink would be easy? Why is there something in me that just can't do bog standard Bucks Fizz? Maybe cos I think it tastes horrible and I am allergic to oranges? Maybe, but I think there is a different drive at work here. The drive to be different, to be new and original, to be the best I can.... This wedding is a chance to show everyone in some ways that I am back where I was before my life went wrong. That although I am absent a lot, even when I am here, that I think of them a lot, that I care a lot.....

Just a drink you say?

*laugh*

Soul Food

I feel tired and drained right now. I have since the clocks changed. I am not the only one at work that is feeling the effects of the change. Some years it seems to have little affect but this year it has.

And now F is on a shift week which means he will be working the next three evenings. So no comfort there.

I was sat in work wondering what I would eat tonight when out of the blue, the desire for chicken and sweetcorn soup hit. I can't remember the last time I ate it and I have never made it. A 30 second internet hunt saw two versions of the recipe printed off. And a trip to the shop saw the ingredients home.

It turned out pretty good and was definitely soul food. Shame the cornflour went a little lumpy in places.... But it tasted good. With prawn crackers.

I needed that, I really did

Fifteen

Another day another piece of fabulousness....

Today F got an early birthday pressie - I took him out for his birthday meal. several weeks early. I was making the most of a special, off season, lunchtime deal to go to Fifteen, one of Jamie Oliver's restaurant. It was lovely (and really quite reasonable). The restaurant is placed in a lovely position on Watergate Bay. We sat in the window and looked out at the blue, blue sky and the flat sea with the hazy headlands in the distance.....

Idyllic.

Then we walked along the beach and it was so warm. If it got no warmer than this in the sun all year I would be happy. Balmy and beautiful. It is still cold in the shade though and without the sun, that breeze can feel like a biting harpy of a wind. Winter has not let hold of her grip entirely yet. The daffodils are blooming everywhere now, swathes of them along the roads and in the fields.

I like Fifteen, the restaurant of today. They have a nice ethos. They buy local, seasonal produce. They support ethical suppliers who produce top notch ingredients. They take on young people as apprentices who need to learn to put their past lives behind them. they don't shy away from police records, but give those who truly want it a chance to turn their lives around. They have to work for it of course, and work hard..... So Fifteen is a charity. I know they do a lot of local work as well. A school I worked in had a class go there to learn about healthy eating.... i bet they do more than that....

So a couple of years back we visited Rick Stein's restaurant in Padstow. Which did I like best? Rick Stein's was old fashioned, discrete, impeccable service. Fifteen was funky and fun, the service was good but more chatty than fun. Fifteen had an aura of fun upmarket surf. Rick Stein's was just plain upmarket and sleek. I have no idea what Rick Stein does with all the earnings but I don't think he runs an ethical charity, I think he is a businesss.

Jamie's influence on Watergate Bay is understated, the restaurant entrance is tucked away. The building is an old beach cafe that has been restructured with a restaurant on top and a cafe and hole in the wall below. From the beach you would not know that the restaurant above was Fifteen. I am guessing the hole in the wall and cafe are also Jamie Oliver's but they makeno advertisement as such. The choice of drinks and produce showed the mark though. There was also a surf academy and surf clothing shop and whether he is a landlord or they form part of the charity, I have no idea. But there is no taking over and empire building here. Jamie sits softly and easily within Watergate Bay....

Rick Stein however.... Padstow is nicknamed Padstein. He has a restaurant, a chip shop, a bistro, a cafe, accomodation, a foodie gift shop, a bakers and a deli.... All branded. He has revitalized Padstow and given it's fishing industry a boost, but at a cost. His is an empire, a brand.

I can't fault the food of either. I adored both and would eat at both again if I was rich or they had another special offer.... but Jamie inspires....

Pop!

I have spent too much time with my new books to do anything else tonight except the one little thing I wanted to share. i did something brand new to me, I popped corn!

Now I have eaten it before but never made it and it was fun! A tiny amount of corn.... then it starts to pop! Yay! And before I know it my pan is soooo crammed with it that no more can pop... or move.... or anything.....

And it tasted nice too!

But seriously! How much fun is that? *grin*

Ancestral Food Lore

In my recent readings I came across an example that adds weight to what i have been learning about foods recently. I feel we have to look towards the original cultures that ate those foods in order to make them nice and tasty, but it goes further than that.

I had never heard of Pellagra before. Why should I? Maize is not a staple of our diets. It is not an illness of the modern world because we understand it now.

Pellagra is a deficiency of niacin than results in the four D's, diarrhea, dementia, dermatitis and death. It became common at the turn of the last century in countries such as Italy were corn had become a staple as well as amongst the immigrant communities of America. It took some time for the fact that it did not affect the native American population to be noticed, which was unfortunate....

Traditionally the grain was treated with lime. It is now understood that this alters the niacin in the corn to make it available, reducing the chance of Pellagra. When corn became a staple within other communities, this treatment was not understood and not adopted.

So yes, looking to the communities that eat foods is a very good idea.

Maybe I should look at how my ancestors ate wheat?

Food Flair

Some parts of me feel uncreative right now, as if I have turned my back on it all and walked away a little. Just because of time and energy. Well maybe not just, because I am thinking too, and readjutsing my life, again.

I have gone back to basics, food.

And there is a huge amount of creativity mixed up in food. I stand there with the raw ingredients in my pan and I look at my spice collection and my fingers fly to this pot and that pot. One night my ingredients might find themselves being Mediterranean, another they look further East.... Sometimes they take heart from the Americas.... Whatever I feel like.

but as my intuition takes me to herbs and spices, is it just about taste or is there more? Is there something of the self-diagnosing kitchen witch here? Am I prescribing myself things I need?

I find two things often creep into my food - paprika and fennel. These two probably more than any others. oh and black pepper.... that gets everywhere! I have just discovered that too much chilli does not agree with me at all.....

Apparently fennel seed is protective, very protective. It helps with negativity and harmful spells....

And paprika - harder to find as magic and paprika brings up lots of reviews but apparently it is for overcoming obstacles. I also know in a health sense it is good for firing up the metabolism a bit, so raising energy levels feels right. I guess it helps us jump over the obstacle.....

So if I had to prescribe myself two herbs knowing all the properties, then these two would actually be top of my list. But I didn't know all this and there they are in my food....

I am creating a new food basis for my life. for my health. not necessarily the most exciting thing to write about but. but I need it. It tops my list right now....

Also how can I write about the number of times I am undoing my crochet. A friend started a granny square for me in some icky coloured wool they had spare. Once I can get my granny square properly started, I will be off and running, poor tension and all. Really not exciting to talk about. A lot of effort for slow progress, but my last starting attempt was beginning to look as it should.....

Wheat Waste

So the last few days I have been making a real effort food-wise.

I have been looking and thinking about alternatives to wheat. Why do we eat soooo much wheat and not so much other stuff?

Well, wheat is cheap and plentiful and grows well in certain places, such as England. It was right there when man first domesticated cereals and it's domestication is what allowed us to build cities, along with barley.

Wheat is not the most grown cereal though, rice has that priviledge, followed by corn and then wheat. Corn or maize however is used in animals more than wheat so wheat is the second most consumed cereal by humans.

What gets me about these cereals, is the sheer inventiveness that has been turned to them. Look at wheat and all the uses we have made of it - bread, pastry, cake, biscuits, tortillas, pitta breads, pasta and muesli and I am sure there are more.....

And rice.... rice is eaten as is or ground into flour which is used in baked goods as well as to make rice milk and sake. It is also popped and well, we humans have found many ways to make it tasty.

Maize has many uses as well but is used less for baked goods as it has no gluten so does not rise as well as wheat.

But these are just three of many. When I was in the supermarket the other night I found two things, firstly potato farls and secondly bags of grains for use in salads and soups etc. The potato farl is made of mashed potato mixed with a little wheat flour. I tried them previously and was not overly impressed. This time they had better serving suggestions on the packet so I did not eat them as they came, I lightly fried them and they were soooo much nicer!

There were several different mixes of grains and I added a mixed grain to my stew yesterday and it was nice. Looks a little like frog spawn but pleasantly soaks up flavour. I like this as a way of bringing other cerals into the diet.

It doesn't matter if I have a little wheat, I just can't eat very much, so both of these are perfect for me as options. The thing is, we were not meant to eat one thing exclusively. And that is the problem for me, I need variety. I can't eat potato farls all the time or barley filled stews. I need change to be healthy. But this quest for variety is why humans have quested to find so many ways of cooking them.

But there are so many cereals and other carbohydrate based foods that are staple parts of peoples diets. There is so much inventiveness out there, so many people have experimented to find tasty ways of cooking them up. Why does it have to be wheat, wheat, wheat? Maybe with a bit of corn and rice thrown in? Supermarkets are making us unhealthy. They give us an illusion of choice but in reality they often take it away.

I looked up potato farls online and discovered they were part of a traditional Ulster breakfast. This led to the different types of cooked breakfast in the UK. And I discovered there is a lot of variety to the carbohydrate portion. Tattie scones (potato scones), oatcakes sit alongside bread. If you look further afield the variety becomes more marked, galettes, grits, home fries and all sorts of other things.

The important thing when experimenting is to make use of the existing knowledge. People already know what goes well with these things..... How to make them tasty....

But there is a whole world of foods out there..... I just need to find it..... (and the time)

Barley, sorghum, rye, quinoa, oats, millet, fonio, buckwheat, spelt, teff, amaranth, wild rice..... all of these are eaten as foods and there has to be at least one tasty way of eating each one? surely?

Other starchy foods such as sago, tapioca, potato, squash, yams and taro have potential. I have an entire cookbook on potato's, I think I need to give it another look.

I think potato and maize are things I need to look at further..... to begin with

The Rock That Fell

I have been happily eating junk for a while. lazily buying breakfast and lunch at the supermarket on my way to work. Spending a fair bit of money. Not exactly putting weight on, but really not losing any either. And my IBS has been quiet, oh so quiet....

Then I think, why am I not making sandwiches? cheap and nice food! Save lots of money. Better for me probably too....

So I make a New's Years resolution and get to it and.....

.... why the hell did I choose to forget that I have a wheat or gluten intolerance? ARGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

*laugh*

I found some time ago, that if i couldn't manage to stick to avoiding problem foods 100% of the time then avoiding them was not worth the effort. That 0.0001% failure would make me so ill that actually eating the bad foods in small quantities irregularly was actually a good thing. Occasional minor illness but tummy relatively happy.

And then i start stuffing huge doorsteps of white bread every day, with a bowl of cereal in the morning. Things slowly start to go down hill.... i semi-listen and start on brown bread. Things continue down the hill..... i semi-listen a little more and buy some wheat and gluten free bread and then BAM! The rock lands and squishes me.

I was so ill last night, so very ill.

My problem is, I can not do cheap food and get the variety i truly need. I can be lazy and buy varierty that does not help my health at all or I can be good and start doing it properly. But it costs money and takes time.

Cooked up mushroom and egg fried rice tonight and accompanied it with some salad, goat's cheese and smoked mackerel. very healthy really. and I have some for tomorrow's lunch but it was 7.30 by the time i even got to sit down. For someone who sleeps at 10 this is hard. very hard.

Why can't I be normal and save money by eating nice cheap home made sarnies every day?

but I am fed up of the rock falling. I need to learn to look up. I should have listened to the hints my body was giving me sooner. a lot sooner

Love and Food

I may be inept in some ways emotionally, but F isn't, it is his forte. He is really good with people and we are really good together. We just get on. We make each other happy. Not that everything is always perfect. I get tired and grumpy for instance and of course, sometimes we argue.

but he makes me a better person. I make better sense with him in my life. He makes me more socially able as well somehow, together he hides some of my rough edges.

He is my Valentine.

Last night we went and ate beautiful food in a restaurant perched on a harbour wall. We talked. We passed the time happily. We ate lobster for the first ever time. delicious!

And with that meal, I finish one of my 101 in 1001 days. To eat in ten posh restaurants..... And a varied bunch they have been, from gastro-pubs to hotel restaurants. Starred and unstarred, famous chefs and well traveled chefs. Good service, bad service and snotty service. But not a bad meal amongst them......

Alverton Manor
An amazing building which used to be a covent, the banqueting hall is grand with an incredible arched ceiling. Only ever had mass catered Christmas meals there - but they do mass catering wonderfully! How they cook for so many and make it sooo amazing I have no idea.

Carn Brea Castle
A tiny little hunting lodge. bare stone walls. An amazingly genial host and beautiful Jordanian food. I love it here so much.

Golden Lion
A lakeside pub with a lovely conservatory restaurant. There used to be a view of the lake but as the garden has grown more beautiful.... Lovely food and offers for locals and regulars.

Lewannick Lodge
Beautiful and funky with sea views across to the lights of Newquay. Fantastic food with dtylish twists.

Pier House Hotel and Restaurant
Lovely location but the building is old and not designed to make the most of the views. A little too up too date inside, not funky or old fashioned, this is very well styled and could be anywhere.... Lovely food! Go for lunch in the Summer and sit outside!

The Quay in Flushing
A lovely location. Flushing is right across the harbour from Falmouth. The building however does not hint at the wonder of the food! The decor is homely but the food could grace any hotel in London..... A secret gem.

Rick Stein's
Celebrity fish chef who was promoting his new book with an out of season lunchtime cheap set menu. Incredible service, truly amazing. Beautiful restaurant. Incredible food but I wish I had ordered differently.

Sawrey House Hotel
A beautiful manor house, fantastically styled as a boutique hotel. A bit up it's own **** though. The manager was a bit rude and it wasn't quite as good as it liked to think it was, although it was good.

Tower Bank Arms
A lovely gastro-pub featured in the Bearix Potter books. Great food in a spruced up pub interior which has kept it's charm and tradition while being brought stylishly in to the present. Friendly service and great value.

Treleigh Arms
Good food but the owners left their staff to struggle and the service suffered.

Food

In the Summer, we love to sit out. It doesn't get dark until late so staying up past my bed time doesn't feel so tough. We went out a couple of nights and the last was a late one - particularly after the drive home. This has just left me feeling bleurgh. It upsets my sleep pattern, this being sociable. So not much been going on with me the rest of the weekend.

The food was beautiful on the second night. Nice but not outstanding on the first ( a huge lump of ginger is not a nice thing to find yourself chewing). The company consisted of old, close and valued friends on the first night - adopted family.... I knew none of the people on Friday, so although nice, it wasn't as comfy....

I also seem to have a strange thing wrong with my ankle. Most of the time it doesn't hurt and I can walk normally. Then all of a sudden, one step, no different to any other, weight goes down on my ankle and it kills.... but only when I have weight on it. I can walk on tip toe. So I am couch potato and a sleepy one at that.

Wow is still taking up time. I have slotted back in to my guild and my role play. My main character has been welcomed back with many hugs and her boyfriend is still there, waiting for her. But my heart is with a new character.... I even wrote a little introduction for her and then invited others to join in and that has been quite fun.

I am tired, I want to hibernate and hide away. I am so glad the holiday time off will start soon. I can't wait.....

Fish Food

So... I thought F had not managed to get last night's shift covered but at the last minute he told me he had and we were going out.

He took me to a lovely restaurant, perched on the cliffs. We had a lovely window table with a beautiful view of the town and headland.

We ordered nibbles rather than starters, italian bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, a platter of meat with toast, picallili, gherkins and olives. So lovely, simple....

Then we had our main course. I chose mackerel and F chose Swordfish. I didn't really think about the fact it was a whole roasted fish... It came out with head and tail attached. I had no idea how to eat it and of course there was a lot of bones as it came with skeleton as well. There was pomegranite seed and french fries along with sauces. We also ordered veg but two portions was way too much! After a while I braved the fish and it was slow eating but delicious!

F's Swordfish was to and it came with what looked like little eggs but were actually hot minty water in gelatine.

Then I had a creme brulee and F had sticky toffee pudding followed by hot chocolate and coffee.

It was all sooooo lovely.

It definitely counts as a posh restaurant! This reminds me of my 101 in 10001 and I figure there are a couple of restaurants from the holiday to add and I can not remember all the ones I recorded from last year either... I can only think of 5 posh restaurants. The Castle, Rick Stein's, The Lakeland Gourmet Pub, The Lakeland Boutique Hotel and the Birthday Clifftop Extravaganza. oooh and I just remembered the sixth - the Golden Pub by the Lake.

So I had a lovely birthday and feel like doing absolutely nothing today. Although I did spend some time on my Wii Fit.... It seems I put on a pound last night? Surprised? not really....

Friendship

Well the Boss was off work, so I had alovely day at work. People were able to help me cover for my missing colleague who shares my job, because they didn't mind being in the office with me, as my Boss was absent. This meant less stress and more fun.

So my Friendship Cake was ready to go out into the world....

So Friend 1 lives near where I work. Except we have not seen each other in a year and her sister quickly told me she had moved out! But bizarely was on her way over and had been talking about getting in contact only that week! The sister kept me talking till she got there. She is a a lovely lady - with a huge mouth! It is difficult for her to be quiet. She has thoughts on everything. She is such a live wire! I love her and always have fun with her. Having two of them there is double the fun - but possibly would quickly become exhausting! *laugh*

Friend 2 is an older friend in both senses of the word. A Grandmother who looks younger than me. I got there and gave upon getting in and was about to leave her cake mix on the back door when I realised she was hoovering. A cup of tea and some good chat later it was time to go....

Her hubby had discovered half my wing mirror on the road when he was walking the dog, which saved me running over the bits. With some jiggery pokery, F was able to fit it all back together just fine when I got home.

I then discovered F had been busy today! He baked me cup cakes! His first ever attempt and they are lovely! He never ceases to amaze me! (This is the same man that nearly burnt our kitchen down last night, leaving the hob on for two hours....) I like having a non-perfect man though, it gives me an excuse not to be perfect!

So life is good!

It felt good being able to drop in and surprise friends like that and feel so welcome and wanted. It felt good to give them that cake mix

Friendship and Cake

I got home today and was about to step on my doorstep to open my door, when I realised there was something there. A bag, through which I could see a note on tope of something else. I took it in.

I read the note quickly and discovered I was being given a Herman!

A pot, full of a yeasty mixture, covered with foil. A sheet of instructions, lots of stirring, occasional feeding and then.... after ten long days! Herman gives birth! To four baby Herman's and one full grown cooked Herman! The baby Herman's need new homes very quickly....

I have never received a friendship cake before but I am really looking forward to doing this.

I called the friend who left Herman for me and we had a nice chat. She sounded doubtful as to whether I would like the whole Herman thing or whether I would find it a bit odd.... Maybe I need to let some of my blog life out in to the real world.... If she had seen my Wreck This Journal or my Happy Book (which is pretty empty at the moment).... As if I wouldn't like a friendship cake!

The Dish with Nine Lives

Have you ever cooked a truly vile dinner? One that should have been lovely but just goes wrong?

I failed to parboil the potatoes enough. I put the spices in too soon and they started to singe so I turned the heat down. My attempt to fry my veg before adding the stock and tomatos was therefore a failure....

I failed to realise all this though.

So then I had to add water and chop up all the potato much smaller.

The food went from a pan to a wok as the volume increased with all the water to my stew pan as I realised it was all wrong.... A second kettle full of water and a load more spices as the water evaporated and took the flavour with it....

And STILL it cooks!

For so long now, it has been cooking in one form or another.

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And still the potato has a bit of that uncooked-ness about it. And I know that if I had cooked it as a stew it would have been done ages ago!

No idea what it will taste like when it is finally done but the taste I just had was rather bland - despite an earlier accident with the fennel seed jar. Thankfully F is not here and waiting for his tea....

Over two hours of cooking and all I have is potential waste so on I doggedly cook...

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I don't understand this dish. How come the number of potatoes I have seems to be reducing but yet I still have some crunchy-ish potato and carrot!

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Well, finally i got to eat - about 3 hours after I started!

...and it was good!

All those spices added at different times seems to have given it layers of taste. It is lovely. I am sure I must have boiled out all the nutrients but hey! so I was aiming for large lumps of potato and veg with a think tomato based sauce lightly covering them... and I got a thin soup with smallish lumps of veg