Blogtastic

Hi. Let’s see if I can do a blogtastic post for you today, after my very short post yesterday. The wind is blowing, the ash tree is swaying outside, and I really regretted wearing sandals on our walk today. Cold toes!

Yesterday was all about the Bs.. we had batons, barbecue, birthday for Julie (my sister-in-law). There was Bajan rum punch and for supper I had a chicken balti from The Binoy curry house. I’m not making any of this up.

Let’s start with the batons. David worked very hard yesterday morning putting up wooden batons on the wall for me behind the veg patch. We have since treated the wood in two coats. We are now awaiting delivery of some wire mesh and some special u-shaped nails from eBay and the project will be good to go. Planting up the side of the house. Love it!

At lunchtime yesterday we had a barbecue. This was a great idea for which I take the credit! The sun was shining and we had beef burgers in baps with black pudding, salad, sausages and a bottle of beer. David of course was the chef, we all know women are not allowed to master fire whilst a man is present. Usually we wouldn’t bother doing a barbecue just for the two of us, but now that we have this little gas barbecue it’s quite easy. We got it a couple of years ago and it folds up like a pushchair and we keep it in the garage. Although I miss the authenticity of charcoal a bit, it’s great that you can cook instantly and also it is much much less messy, especially as we now use some cooking sheets that you just pop in the dishwasher afterwards. Job done.

I am aware the lawn is getting to look as wild and long as my hair. The grass will get cut this week. My hair, who knows. All I know is that David won’t be doing it.

Yesterday we also had a birthday, so Happy Birthday again Julie.

We had a Zoom family quiz with four teams that was a lot of fun once the birthday girl got up and running and could hear us on Zoom. We had categories of food, travel, history, music, general knowledge and books. I was sure that a loganberry was a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry, but the answer was tayberry. On my google checking just now loganberry is indeed also a cross between a blackberry and raspberry, so we should have had another point methinks! Too late now. Next time.

For supper tonight we are having this lamb…New Zealand boneless half leg.

It’s just gone in the oven. I nearly christened my super shiny new roasting tin, but then decided that was a bit overkill for the size of the joint especially as I’m doing new potatoes rather than roasties tonight. We’ll also have green beans, gravy and mint sauce. I will try not to have any red wine as I feel like I’ve probably already had more than enough alcohol this weekend. For pudding I will have some sort of fruit and ice cream, and David will just have ice cream. By the way David has also now become a fan of the shiny new roasting tin and as I caught him admiring it the other day he said it will be a shame to use it and get it messy/scratched!

Are you working on any craft projects in lockdown? My Mosaicraft was going really well but believe it or not I have been too busy to complete it, or maybe I’ve just got out of the habit. After many weeks of only guitar practice and TV watching, David has moved onto building his model of the Starship Enterprise. David being David this will be a work of perfection.. I’ve seen some of the perfect little paintwork already. Earlier today he requested clear nail varnish from me to add to some part of it. You’d think that this might be a relaxing hobby, but there has already been a certain amount of swearing and huffing and puffing from the upstairs office. The little red paint seems to have spilled itself all over the board, thankfully not onto the carpet. And the waste paper basket now looks like there has been a massacre. The “happy” modeller has now gone back to rock n’ roll guitar to calm his nerves. Together with singing. Thankfully he is rather good.

Very soon we will get our new instructions for life from Boris (another B). The preview of the message “Stay alert” does not fill me with that much confidence. I do hope he makes it a lot clearer than that. To stay at home or not to stay at home. That is the question.

As I fall in love with my garden a little more each day, the new discovery yesterday was this beautiful iris.

Each day something else pops it’s little head up, or breaks forth into bloom. The peony is now well and truly out.

And the rock rose is going strong with more and more flowers like little pink tissue paper.

Well all that remains for me to do now, a creature of habit, is to show you the daily walk pictures from yesterday and today. Today was tricky with the wind blowing everything about, and we ended up in mutual agreement to take a short cut home to our cosy house where I could get some socks on! Now make sure you “Stay Alert” whatever that means and I look forward to “seeing” you all tomorrow xx