sMisery of sMuks

sMuks has been rather miserable for the last week due to an infection of the impacted wisdom tooth. The pain was not the reason for such misery, but it was rather due to the fact that she could not eat solid foods and had to remain hungry. sMuks does not do hunger.

sMitch, a little puzzled, went away…

Soggy bun

If you were given a wonderful home with all the comforts that money can buy, would you sit the whole day in the only spot that gets you drenched when it rains?

No? Guess who did just that?

Denty and the coconut

Denty was in Tesco one day and he came across two coconuts. He had to bring them home.

Today, he took out the electric drill and a fancy saw. He drilled 3 holes into the coconut and and he went out into the garden to do some sawing. I was busy in the vegetable patch, but I think I heard some swearing.

Half an hour later, I found Denty in the kitchen scrapping the flesh from the coconuts. I decided to help him blend the flesh and soaked them in a little hot water. I then squeezed out the coconut milk from the pulpy stuff… using a muslin curtain Denty’s mum gave us. Shhhh…

All of a sudden, a fantastic curry appeared in a pot. Thank you Denty! I would have taken photos of it, except that I fell face first into my dinner again.

Stressful flights

All of a sudden, I have these very stressful flights to make…

8 May – Amsterdam with Boss-dude to conduct a hostile suspect interview

11 to 14 May – Dusseldorf for a global conference

Not sure May – Finland with another Boss-dude for arbitration

I am so nervous about travelling alone with Boss-dudes. I must remember to be nice, polite, smart, engaging and sweet. I must not snore on flight, put foot in mouth and fidget (doing nub-tapping type actions). This is a great opportunity to raise my profile with the partners, but raising it a bit too much is…

In short, I should behave myself a little more and be Muks a little less.

Budgerigar

We used to have budgies when anttyk and I were kids. I really liked looking at them as they were very pretty, even though anttyk’s chasing me with cat-shredded ones might have scarred me some.

I am not hinting at anything but one does wonder if we have room…

True to our roots

Mitch and I are eagerly awaiting for the oriental brassicas to be ready.

The choi sum…

The purple pak choi (hmmm… purple white vegetable?)…

They are all lovingly hand-reared from seed by me. Me? Cactuses used to die on me!

Lambshank accompaniments

We are having lambshank tonight, baked in foil with New Zealand (Villa Maria) sauvignon blanc, leek, herbed butter and pepper.

I am rather pleased that my garden managed to supply the main flavours for the star of the show. I harvested the rosemary, mint, thyme, sage and leek.

Of course, there will be purple sprouting broccoli gently steamed and mixed with butter as a side dish. Mmmmmmm… this makes all the hard work in the garden well worth it.

 

First harvest

Mini sMapps (who has an extremely high level of fondness for fresh garden peas) left England one week too early. Today, I harvested the first of the indoor peas.

Yum yum yum yum yum!

I also had the first harvest of the oriental salad (mizuna et al) yesterday. In Mitch’s (enk-Bob) words- they were fantastic. It was so nice that Mitch had her share for breakfast with mirin, cracked pepper, extra virgin olive oil and maggie sauce dressing.

Okay, I didn’t have time to take any photographs of the nicely constructed salad in my bowl as I fell right into it.

Hot cross buns

Last Easter Monday, I baked some hot cross buns. It was very tasty, but I think the warm agitated dough was made a little too hot.

My other bun was less hot and cross though she looks sweet enough to eat!

A heap of happiness

It was a beautiful spring day today. It was sunny and warm-ish. I spent the entire day in the garden, doing the vegetable garden maintenance stuff.

There is no part of me that doesn’t ache at the moment, including my head (well, admittedly it was more due to the box of Scrabble falling on my head than gardening) but I am well-fed and have a nice glass of wine beside me. I feel a general sense of achievement for the day’s good work, I am on my lair in a heap of Dog Dogs.

I am happy.