A weekend at home

We had a lovely weekend. It was exciting to come back from work on Friday and know that my partner was home. I’d gone to M&S and bought one of those ‘eat in for a tenner’ deals they do and I have to say it was delightful. Butternut squash and goats cheese lasagne, roasted veg, fruit dessert and a bottle of plonk. Of course, whilst it appears to be fantastic deal (the wine alone was £4.99 before the discount was applied), you never just go into M&S for one thing. And they know that, they know they are dealing with the weak, the over-enthusiastic and the greedy. Sadly I was all three and ended up spending not £10 as planned, but nearly £30. This is not just marketing; this is M&S marketing…

We ended up at Route 38 (an American style dinner on the A38) with some friends on Saturday morning, where we had a good old catch up (even though we’d seen them the week before!) and large and rather lovely breakfasts. Then we went our separate ways; us to see a clock maker. My partner inherited her grandfather’s long-case clock (circa 1830) but it had stopped working. The clock means a great deal to all of us and so we wanted it fixed by the best and in a tiny village in Cornwall we think we found exactly that.

He’s slightly eccentric, an impression not helped by the magnifying lens that protrudes from one of the lenses of his glasses, but also by his love of clocks – all clocks. Absolutely all of them – his ability to talk hind legs off of unsuspecting donkeys and his general world-weariness. He is a craftsman in a society that no longer values its crafts people. It saddens him that there are “so-called” clock repairers and restorers out there who do a lousy job and charge people the earth for the privilege. So he toils away, building on his reputation of excellence and often having to clean up other people’s messes. Anyway, we were completely enchanted and trust him to be able to sort out our grandfather clock – mind you, it’s costing us £300 to have it done!

I sorted books in the afternoon despite really suffering from this cold and ended up having a fairly early night. Sunday we did a big shop because I was getting fed up going out for lunch and paying a lot of money for manky sandwiches when I can make some lovely sarnies myself, and then we sorted the bedroom and most of our clothes. I was in bed by 8pm reading and keeping everything crossed that the cold would be gone by morning. It wasn’t… oh well…

Achoo!

I feel quite rotten today. Being a positive sausage, I think that’s because I’m about to get better – because you always feel worse before you get better! I’ve decided to take my beloved out to lunch in Dulwich and we have a friend popping over this evening. I may be planning a bit too much, but I’m getting bored of being in my PJs watching bad TV...

My partner has been a domestic goddess this morning and has made sweet potato bread and rocky road squares! Both of which I’m dying to try...

I finished one of my Christmas books, Barbara Stoney’s biography of Enid Blyton, already. I couldn’t put it down and will blog about it in more depth later. Needless to say, an excellent book that makes me want to read much more about Blyton.

And talking of writing, I’ve been giving very serious thought to giving up blogging entirely. I suspect it’s distracting me from more serious writing endeavours like finishing my third book. Who knows what the New Year will bring...

Holiday round-up

What a lovely Christmas, it’s been full of thievery, food, presents, love and laughter. Oh and a nasty cold!

The thievery, you won’t be surprised to discover was as the result of Pluto and Bess deciding to help themselves. First to an almost full box of maltesers (human chocolate is very harmful to dogs as some friends of ours discovered recently, but there’s not a lot of chocolate on maltesers and shared about between two large dogs with robust constitutions they were remarkably unaffected!), and the lamb bone from our roast! Bess is a master food thief and managed to pull down the roasting dish and share one large bone between the two of them...

This year we decided to have a Christmas on our own, at home. (Particularly poignant in light of it now being our last Christmas in our London flat.) It was the best decision ever. It’s been so relaxed. We got up when we wanted to, ate when we wanted to, opened our presents when we wanted to and went back to bed when we wanted to! It was bliss. Normally we host Christmas and plan to next year as well, and as fun as it is, it’s quite hard work! And as I’ve been suffering from quite a bad cold and my partner getting over one, it’s meant we’ve really been able to rest and indulge ourselves.

We got some amazing presents and my partner made a big fuss of my birthday. She made me breakfast in bed on Christmas day and on Boxing Day too. And then on Christmas day she bought all the presents in so we could open them in bed. It took her quite a while to bring them all through. We ended up with 4 piles; her xmas presents, my xmas presents, joint xmas presents and my birthday presents! I was in 7th heaven! People really indulged the big kid in me as well which meant I got lots of fun presents.

We decided to have lamb instead of turkey this year and started dinner quite late, but as it was only us, we could do what we liked! Dinner was delish and we had ordered an Italian pannacotta (from Harrogate in Yorkshire surprisingly!) to have as a desert rather than Christmas pud or cake which both of us find a bit heavy and rich. With strong coffee the orange and chocolate pannacotta was lovely!

We didn’t rate the telly very much over Christmas (although loved the new Wallace and Gromit!) so largely listened to new CDs and started to read our new books...

Boxing Day was equally relaxed and the leftovers tasted superb. And to be honest, we’re not doing too much this weekend either! In our defence, with the move coming up, we have a massive amount to do and need to shift these colds to do it all properly. We did have the energy to spend all our wedding vouchers on a gorgeous new bed and very, very expensive new mattress from John Lewis! I also bought a new 32” TV, a mixing bowl and a wallpaper border! I LOVE online shopping!

We did all our family visiting before Christmas, dropping off presents and catching up on news, although we now we have to make sure we see people again before we move as well.

My partner’s grandmother gave me some money for my birthday and Christmas and I spent most of it in a day on heirloom vegetable seeds for the new garden. I chose some flower seeds as well, but mainly it was all my favourite veg! I can’t wait to start planning what to plant and when.

Right now I’m still in my PJs and apart from needing to walk the dogs, I will be having a browse at some of the sales (need a fridge and a washing machine!) and then it’s more good food and more laughter. This has been the best Christmas and birthday ever!