Just Catching the Flight...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6904640.stm

Kate Nash - Foundations

Excellent single!!!

The Gospel According to Saint Christopher

The patron Saint of travellers, he say "NO". He said it loud. He said it proud. "Thou shalt not get to your friend's baby's christening... instead thou will sit on the M25 for six hours, only to return home empty-hearted/full bladdered and starving hungry...". He pointed his big staff at us (ooooh errr...), and thus it was so.

Saturday started so well. I picked up Emma, we both looked good in our posh 'christening' outfits (not christening gowns before you ask - I couldn't get my old one on. heh), and we hit the road - intending to arrive in Croydon in plenty of time for Tesla's little boy's christening.

In fact, we had factored in SO much time that we would get a chance to eat lunch, and even sneak a look around the shops, before I met little Namar (and indeed his Daddy, Nile) for the first time. I have not seen Tesla herself for almost four years, since she lives in The Netherlands. I was SO looking forward to this 'gospel' stylee christening (Tesla's Dad is the bishop at the church). It was going to be great!

As it turns out... we hit traffic on the M25 at 12.... we sat and sat and sat, and five hours later we managed to get off at the next junction (a mere 4 miles away). The highlight of this marathon chatting session was only managing 'half a wee', having climbed down a grass bank in heels, and responding to Emma's call of "get yer knicker's up, the traffic is moving!". This caused me to dash up the slope, jump behind the wheel (Dukes of Hazzard style), only to drive 30ft, before we ground to a halt and stayed there another two hours. Never has a handbag looked so tempting as a possible toilet!

After 45 minutes, we managed to get around the roundabout at the top of the slip road we got to, and drove home (arriving back in the evening!). Since the M25 provides one of just two river crossings in the sensible regions of London (i.e. without having to drive through Oxford circus, or taking the Woolwich Ferry - which doesn't really count as a viable means of crossing the river), the whole world had decided to take the A13 route to the Blackwall tunnel. For the first time in a long time, I just had to admit defeat and do the sensible thing and turn round!!!!

There are a couple of things that put our plight into perspective though... a) the reason for the closure was the death of an 11 year old boy, who had fallen off the back of his Dad's motorbike, and sadly died. Much carnage was caused by the cars trying to avoid this child in the road. That is reason enough not to complain TOO much I guess, b) was the poor be-suited guy close to us, who appeared to have a flat battery and had several bridesmaid dresses in the back of his car, and what looked to be all the musical instruments and disco decks for a wedding... his distressed face and the fifty or so fags he smoked at once told the whole story!

Other than that... great weekend! ;-) Ahem...

Actually - I *did* finish off Saturday nicely. Emma and I felt we deserved a delicious meal at Wagamama after our journey from hell (chicken Gyoza bought the smile back to my face, like only Gyoza can!). On Sunday, I cooked a delicious (even though I say so myself) for Mark's parents, and we had a nice afternoon and evening just chilling in the garden with a few beers, and trying to plan our new kitchen extension. In fact, it seems that other than Saturday, I spent the whole weekend eating, as have just remembered that I also went out Friday night for a meal with Mark. We went to Bruno's Brasserie.... I have said it before, and will say it again - why hadn't I been to that place sooner?!! Dinner there is SUPERB!

Anyway... speak soon, love
Hayls
xxxxxx

Not Bad For a Village Team

Last night I actually missed netball (sob) in favour of watching Histon FC play a pre-season friendly against the "mighty" West Bromwich Albion. This is supposed to be a team that *almost* made it into the premiership last year, and you would have expected them to walk all over poor little Histon FC. As it turned out - the two teams were very evenly matched! In fact, in the second half, Histon walked all over them! Excuse my enthusiasm - it *is* the first match for quite some time... ;-)

Anyway - am pouting as am up that bloody tower in London today, and I don't like it! It feels very precarious in the current London climate. Sod being brave and not letting terrorists win! I am pooping my pants up here! 38 floors is a long way to jump! ;-)

With much love and looking forward to home time,
Hayls
xxxx

Gretna Green-fingers

HUGE congratulations to my very good friends Jane and Jamie - not only have they managed to impregnate themselves (well Jane anyway), but they have also eloped and gone and gotten themselves hitched in a secret wedding! In true Rickaaaay and Sam stylee, they ran away to Gretna Green and had their wedding in secret - therefore denying me the opportunity to wear a big pink hat and throw rice (perhaps this is why?!). Apparently this has been a long planned event, so there is not even a whiff of shotgun smoke about it... shame, as it would have made the whole story a lot more fun!

Joking aside... my sincerest best wishes to you both. You have always been a stunningly well-suited couple - sickeningly in love, and always supportive of each other. I wish you both a very long and very very happy future together. I think we will have to wait until Jane has had the baby to have a sort of 'post event hen-party' - and I won't hear any of your nonsense that this is precisely the sort of thing you wanted to avoid, Jane! We can make it just the two of us - and have a grand night out in Oulton Broad (just for old time's sake). You bring the Concorde, and I'll bring the Thunderbird (Red, of course!).

Much love
Hayls
xxxx

The Broken Family Wagon

What a fantastic gig last night! Went to see The Broken Family Band at The Junction in Cambridge, and was yet again blown away by them. An amazing band that somehow manage to be The Magic Numbers, The Pixies and The Kings of Leon all at once! Steve Adams (lead singer) is such a cheeky little character (chipmunkish - God I hope he never reads this), with an excellent rapport with the crowd - this is their hometown after all. I will be purchasing their latest album forthwith.

My own personal wagon crashed though last night. I was being SO good, and up until 11pm I had only drunk half a pint of bitter (as I was driving). However, on arrival home we popped open a bottle of whiskey (actually, "smashed open" is probably a more apt term for whiskey). I don't think we made it to bed until 1am, and this morning I have a tongue reminiscent of Gandhi's left flip-flop. This also means that the diet has malfunctioned today too - you can't soak up whiskey with bloody bananas and grapes! I have eaten cheese, slammed between pieces of buttery bread - and lots of it. I am almost feeling like a human and its just gone midday ;-)

Anyway... enough self pity. Tonight, my cousin Mark was supposed to visit. However, it seems that the numb-nuts has double-booked me, and he is flitting off to a far more exciting night out in London instead. I am perhaps thinking that this is a good thing, considering my delicate disposition. It may mean that a long overdue visit to the cinema is in order, or failing that, a night hugging the sofa.

The weekend is looking like a busy one... got Mum and Dad and Nanny Hutch coming tomorrow, which should be lovely. Nanny wants to see where I live, so they are bringing her over from Lowestoft by train. It will be quite an epic journey for her, but I am planning to make it worth her while by burning lots of food on the bbq (weather permitting!). Sunday, I have the Race for Life (urgh). Looks like I will be doing this alone this year! Neither Emma or Tracy are running now (Tracy has hurt her toe, and Emma just did the clever thing and failed to sign up), and it seems that none of the family are coming to watch me disgrace myself either (bit too much of a trek for my pares, 2 days in a row, and Mark's family have previous plans). In some respects, it might be better that way, since I will be less concerned about beating last year's time if it is only me to witness the failure!

Anyway... back to the grindstone. I have been forced to order myself lots of goodies off Amazon today, just to get through the day!
Take care and much love,
Hayls
xxxxx

Wednesday Stuff

Last night I played netball over at the recreation ground. Only a few turned up, and we were rewarded with a pretty impressive thunder storm (including hail and fork lightening). What a bunch of troopers though - we managed to play on throughout, much to the dismay (I think) of a new girl that attended. I doubt we will be seeing her again! ;-)

Am fully back into diet mode, and have even managed to stay off the booze for THREE whole nights (count 'em!). My resolve will be sorely tested tonight as I am going to Robert and Emma's for dinner (I am cooking my fave thing at the moment - Pork in Apricot and Almond Sauce - a weight watchers special - see below!). Am dragging Emma out for a run tonight before dinner - am hoping that my efforts will pay off this weekend. I might even do the Histon Fun Run this Saturday (a mere 3k), which might help my training for Sunday's 5k run.

Anyway... trying desperately to resist the biscuit drawer at work. I find myself absent-mindedly opening it "just to have a look" whenever I go into the kitchen to make tea. Please God, if you exist, please give me some bloody will power! I actually want to go on holiday later this year, and not feel in danger of being the subject of a false whale beaching alarm call! ;-)

Much love
Hayls
xxxx

PS. Recipe for tonight's dinner:

Spiced Pork with Apricot Sauce and Almonds

Ingredients:

• 5 spray low-fat cooking spray
• 500 g Pork Fillet, Raw, lean, (1lb 2oz), sliced
• 1 large onion(s), thinly sliced
• 150 ml cider, dry
• 150 ml apple juice, unsweetened (1/4 pint)
• 1 portion stock cube, vegetable
• 1 teaspoon grated ginger root, fresh
• 5 g lemon grass stems, (1 tsp) finely chopped
• 200 g apricots, (7oz) fresh, halved and pitted
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper, freshly ground black
• 15 g almonds, flaked (1/2oz)
  

Instructions:

• Heat a large frying pan and spray with low fat cooking spray. Add the slices of pork fillet and cook for about 1 minute on each side, or until seared and browned. Add the onion and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
• Pour in the cider and allow it to bubble up for a few moments, then add the apple juice, stock cube, ginger and lemon grass. Heat until simmering, making sure that the stock cube has dissolved.
• Add the apricots, reduce the heat and cook gently for 12-15 minutes. If the sauce liquid reduces too much, add a splash of water. Check the seasoning, adding salt and pepper to taste.
• Serve the pork sprinkled with the almonds.
  

Notes
You could use lean pork steaks instead of fillet – they tend to be a little cheaper.

Cornish Past-tease

See what I did there? ;-)

Had a wonderful trip to Cornwall last week, and yet again have not had time to download photos from trip. We did so much, I can hardly remember it all - and thankfully managed to avoid most (if not all) of the rain that fell on this sunny country last week. A quick run-down...

We spent several days on various beaches in and around Padstow - including Harlyn Bay, Watergate Bay (I managed kayak surfing in both those places!), Trevone, Treyarnon and Porthcuthan. The kayak surfing was a bit of a revelation to both of us - Mark bought a sea kayak before we left, and after much persuasion I actually had a go. LOVED it the first time I gave it a go (much to Mark's surprise), and played on it for well over half an hour before capsizing and getting a lung full of sea water, which put me off a little for the rest of the day. However, my next attempt later in the week at Harlyn Bay caused much pouting - even more than the Widow Twanky accommodation debacle in Romania (if you don't know what I mean, you may have to read back a few months)... Mark said that my bottom lip may have caused a solar eclipse in some parts of the world (did you see it Jen?). The waves were ENORMOUS, and I felt extremely out of my depth, in all senses of the phrase!

We spent a rainy day at the Eden project, which was simply stunning. Words cannot convey the surprise at rounding the corner and being met with the sight of the biomes in that valley - an enormous and stunning place! Unfortunately, we visited this on the one day that it poured with rain, precisely so that we could stay out of it. Unfortunately, we didn't bank on half of Cornwall having the same idea, so it was less relaxed than I would have liked! Parts of the tropical biome were like Oxford Circus on the Saturday before Xmas!

We also had a lovely bike ride along the Camel trail, which runs from Padstow out past Bodmin Moor. We went to Wadebridge (cute little town), and then right round the estuary to a place called Rock. We then caught a ferry back to Padstow - which was a lot quicker and easier than the outward journey! Particularly since my hire bike had broken gears!

All in all a fab break. The Camp site at Dennis Cove is well worth staying at - lovely facilities and just a short walk into Padstow itself. Padstow is one of my fave places ever - the shops there sell all of the surfer type clothing I love, and the restaurants and cornish pasties/fish and chips/cream teas there are amazing! It sure beats Newquay, which had my first visit this time - what a dump?! It made Great Yarmouth look like a classy resort! Not my scene at all... although the beaches near there are pretty spectacular! I even managed to take my running gear, and got up early on three mornings whilst I was there, and ran a few miles along the Camel Trail each time... just me and all the lovely sea birds etc... in the estuary. Lovely! We also had a nice visit from Robert and Emma one morning - they were camping in Cornwall too, and stopped to bring us croissants and have a cuppa with us on their way to St. Ives.

On the way home on the weekend we stopped off at Wookey Hole nr Glastonbury; a beautiful cave complex (although has been made into a rather cheesy tourist attraction, in more than one sense). The posters and attractions were very bizarre and extremely eighties in design - a big plastic King Kong greeted you to a garden area, and there were huge caves of Cheddar Cheese undergoing the 'cheddaring' process!

Anyway... am back to Earth with a bump. Got lots of work to do, have the Race for Life this weekend (gulp) and lots of family health stuff going on... (Mark's Dad has cracked a couple of ribs, Mark's cousin unfortunately committed suicide, and Nanny Brown is back in hospital). On a much brighter note, I have to pass on congratulations to Jane and Jamie, who are expecting their first child in the New Year! Very exciting! Also congratulations on their house move - and Jen, am very excited (although also a little sad) about your impending move too! I have fond memories of your little blue house :-(

Anyway... MUST get my photos up soon.
Much love
Hayls
xxxxxx