A Family Affair

Had a really pleasant weekend. Friday night, we just stayed in and I cooked a belated Burn's night meal - vegetarian haggis, tattie's and neeps, and a wee dram of whiskey for Mark...

Saturday, we wended our way over to Lowestoft to catch up avec Le Famile Brun... (my French does not get better with the passing years! heh... sort of "Hench" - Hayley/French).

We spent the afternoon with Dad in Lowestoft town centre shopping... can you believe there are that many shops! We do rather enjoy looking around the discount stores in Lowestoft (and boy, there are MANY!). We bought, amongst other things, a tiny plate for my dinners (my new 'small portion' regime), a workbench for Mark (a bargain at £6!), batteries for Mark's new remote controlled plane (don't ask), and the rather gorgeous cook book called Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros... also a bargain at £6.25 from WHSmith at the moment! (was originally £25, and would have been worth that! Delicious recipes!...).

Late afternoon, we paid a visit to Nanny and Grandad - both in very good form and reminiscing about some of the characters in and around the fish markets and trawlers when Grandad worked on the boats. These stories always make me smile, and make me wish I could somehow capture them all, so I could dip into them whenever I liked in future...

In the evening, we went over to Tracy's, and she had slow-cooked one of the recipes out of this book in her Aga - a sort of roast lamb with lemony roast potatoes... gorgeous and simple! The boys are absolutely gorgeous - Oscar has grown SO much and is very smiley, and Henry is just delightful! Mark managed to build bridges with him (after the beetle eating debacle of last year), and bought him a simple polystyrene toy plane (cost = 39p), which kept him amused all weekend! Isn't it amazing how cheaply children can be bought?! hehe... Mark did however undo some of his good work by teasing him ceaselessly all weekend about various things (calling him "Henri" instead of Henry, when Henry was showing us his new French skills - causing Henry to shout at the top of his voice that he was "Eng-er-lish" whilst pulling his new "angry eyes" look, bless him... hehe...).

Sunday, poor Tracy had to work, so we took the boys for a lovely walk along the seafront (how I miss the sea!). Mum cooked a delicious paella for lunch, with baked lemon pudding for desert (delicious, and all weight watchers!), and then we made our way home. In the evening, we met up with Noel and his friend Pete to watch John Cale at The Junction... A very enjoyable evening - not sure about all of Cale's stuff - some moments of pure and absolute genius (some beautiful ballads, and he *does* have an amazing voice), and then some of absolute lunacy - his rendition of Heartbreak Hotel bought tears to my eyes - and not with joy! Painful! I guess when someone has been going so long, they are bound to have had a few 'experimental' periods in the 70s/80s... nuff said.

Anyway... I am off running this week. Still got some ankle pain, and don't want to do any serious long lasting damage! Very frustrating though, as I don't want to let my motivation slide... Mark will have to hide my exercise DVDs from me this week, so I don't get tempted by them! On an up note, I managed to lose 5lbs last week (?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!), so am feeling a lot lighter and a bit more comfortable in my jeans! Lets hope it continues this way... looks like beer will have to be an occasional treat from now on!

Lots of love
Hayls
xxxxxxxx

ps. Am LOVING this today!