Christmas clay

During our holiday in Wales, it rained a lot. I bought a stack of coloured polymer clay to entertain myself and I had a fantastic time making little figurines for our Christmas tree this year. I then baked them at 100c for 30 minutes to harden them.

My first attempt was a hedgehog.

The walk

While we were in Wales, Denty came down with a pretty bad case of the ‘flu. It was proper ‘flu with the fever and all, not the man-flu, contrived to get out of hiking type. Anyway, as he was unwell,  before it starts to rain again, I thought I could take a short walk into the village about a mile away to see if they have a little shop to get more paracetamol for Denty.

I had two choices, to walk the single track road or to take a supposed short cut over the hill. So I wandered out of the very long and uphill driveway…

Ruthlin, the cottage in Wales

To celebrate  the first anniversary of our marriage, Denty and I rented a little (well, not-so-little as it was a four-bedroomed barn conversion) in the middle of nowhere in Wales. The building was a barn once belonging to a nearby-ish farm called Ruthlin Mills, hence the converted cottage was named Ruthlin.

It was a mere 200 mile journey, so Denty and I thought it would be nice to make a little detour to visit Stonehenge on the way there.  You see, about 20 years ago, little Denty found a Stonehenge souvenir bookmark in church and has used it ever since. What was once a leather bookmark with the respectable amount of tassels is now a sorry piece of cow hide with 3 and a bit strands of tassel. Since Denty had never seen Stonehenge, we thought it would be a great opportunity to get him a new bookmark.

After the little detour, we continued our journey to Ruthlin.

The claypot chicken rice

I had a craving for rice last night, so when I got home, I made a claypot chicken rice. Disregarding minor details like I have neither a claypot nor a charcoal burner. it turned out excellent. It even had the slightly burnt bits of rice at the bottom of the pot.

First, I put one and half cups of water to boil. Then I dumped in some chicken thighs, Chinese cooking wine, sesame oil, a knob of ginger, two twigs of smashed lemongrass, light soya sauce, dark soya sauce and pepper. After simmering the thighs for 15 minutes, I added one cup of rice, covered the pot and let it cook for another 15 minutes.

I swear, I really did intend to take photos of my nonstickpot chicken rice, but the entire thing was so delicious that I simply did not have the time.

So, for all of you readers out there (except Denty who watched me gobble the massive heap of rice in stunned silence), it was kinda brown and ricey with chicken scattered about.

Sake sashimi

I went to the Photographers’ Gallery late this afternoon to scope the Christmas party venue I am in charge of organising. The gallery was fantastic, and best of all, was very near Selfridges.

I had to pop in the food hall, shed a few tears at the oysters (ones that are caught but not eaten by me) and bought a nice little package of salmon sashimi.

Good snack, that was.

The fillet steak

Denty asked me what I wanted for dinner last night, so I said “steak!” Denty then asked me what kind of steak did I want, so I told him “I don’t care, as long as it is big”.

So, Denty made the executive decision and bought a two kilogram chunk of fillet steak.

Fluffed

[Photograph of the dog dogs playing hide and seek]

I really like my dog dogs. I especially like Jumbo Dog Dog’s considerably sized nose. I like to hug his nose when I sleep and sometimes, to make the sleep extra yummy, I fluff his nose a little.

I know that “my side of the bed” is wherever I end up, but I was woken up last night by Denty fluffing my head …

The (almost there) lawn project

We started off with this…

It has taken two months, but this is where we are now.

Blast from the past

Do you remember that craze in the 90s that made most of us go around cross-eyed? 3D-stereograms!!!!

Any guesses what this is?

Yorkshire tea

Denty, Paddy and I went to Harrogate last weekend. We almost made a beeline to the teashop after parking the car. Well, what else do you do in somewhere so quintessentially English? To make it even more English, we even (Denty was very keen) queued up at Betty’s Tea Shop for 30 minutes.

The wait was definitely worth it. I had a sapphire blue ceylon tea and a fresh fruit tart. The tea definitely tasted better than the ones in the Ritz and Claridges.

After a happy face-stuffing session and a little wander, we headed to the apartment we rented for an evening of loafing.

Paddy enjoyed watching the autumn leaves from the window.