Everything But The Head

I have never eaten so much meat in one sitting. No:29 restaurant and wine bar in Whaley Bridge Derbyshire was perfect. The decor is warm and welcoming and modern and we were given a professional welcome and the waiting staff were very efficient and friendly. A small jazz combo played Norah Jones type music during the evening at the right level, not drowning conversation and adding to the relaxing atmosphere. Above is my first course. Sweetbreads. They were perfectly cooked and brought back many happy memories for me as my late Chef husband used to cook Sweetbreads when we owned our restaurant. December 7th would have been his birthday so eating them seemed like a perfect tribute.

The above dish was described as Lamb Three Ways. Much laughter. There are Lamb's Kidneys, two Lamb Cutlets and a Barnsley Lamb Chop on a Rosti. Again perfectly cooked and flavoursome. These two dishes contained more meat than I eat in a week. I did have to give one of the Cutlets to my bloke. Can you see those Sumo Chips just above with a Rib-Eye Beef Steal balanced on top?

A great evening in a smashing restaurant.

Bad Taste

My decluttering has produced some forgotten gems, including this cruet set. I've never used it. Perhaps I would if it ground rock salt and black peppercorns. See how the male bottom is perter than the female's?

My New Galley Kitchen

This is my new galley kitchen. Twelve years ago I got planning permission to build a kitchen extension here but had to let it go because I couldn't afford it.

This refit in the existing galley, completed six weeks ago, cost almost as much as as an extension would have in 1995 but I love the result. Before this refit it was a 1970's Retro. Even more poignant for me because I've never had a brand new cooker, fridge, floor-tiles, sink, units, washing machine or lights in my life. I've always bought reconditioned or they've been another person's choice and come with the property.

The Butcher's Block on castors is wonderful for food preparation and storing everyday knives, cutlery and china. I'm pleased I didn't have that extension as perhaps it would seem dated now?

Mums

I told my Tesco Home Delivery Man that I ordered my Mum's weekly shop online from Dorset and it was delivered to her in Sussex.

'That's nothing' he said ' There's a bloke in Canada who orders his Mum's shopping from there and she gets it delivered in Dorset'.

I told my Mum. A pause on her end of the 'phone. Then,

'That's a long way to fly the shopping'.

The Navigation Inn

A sample of some of the brilliant dressing up for Halloween at The Navigation Inn at Buxworth, High Peaks.

These are the chefs.

The first slices of the roasted sheep. It was delicious.

Very scary indeed. The landlords of The Navigation Inn decorated every spare inch and I hear that they've already decorated for the Christmas Season with equal enthusiasm.

Drip

Woken up to water dripping through my newly plastered kitchen ceiling onto my new electric hob. Got a bucket catching the drips. Taken a photo for insurance purposes.

Not a disaster compared to the many global troubles but it really has upset me. I waited years for the time and the money to re-renovate my tiny old cottage. Spent since April with builders and total chaos and dust and living uncomfortably - then this happens.

My own fault for feeling so snug and smug and complacent because my home is (was) almost perfect at last and I was wallowing in the pleasure and comfort. That'll learn me.

Where's a Polish Plumber when you need one?

Do It Yourself

Had to wait a whole month to get my dental appointment. A back molar is loose and I'll need a bridge in the future.

I arrived at nine in the morning to be told the dentist's drill was overheating and I'd need to make another appointment as he couldn't treat me. I argued that my mouth was senstive and I was taking pain killers - so they gave me a box of anti-biotics.

This snotty receptionist told me I could have another appointment in a month's time. I was livid. Told her I wasn't going to wait that long and shouldn't have to and will not be paying for the anti-biotics as I only need them because they couldn't treat me. She reluctantly gave me an appointment in ten days time.

Meanwhile, this loose tooth means I can't eat, speak with a slur and worn my tongue out pushing it back in it's socket.

So I got home still full of anger - so I yanked it out myself.

Bloke suggested that the pantomime season is with us and I could get a bit-part as a Pirate.

Back With Another Flurry

A whole summer spent renovating the cottage, visiting Instanbul and Wales so no wonder no Blogging.

Sadly I had to abandon my Open University course. The first time I've had to drop out of an OU course and it upset me to have to do this but I made the right decision as studying would have added pressure to an already very busy time - can always pick up the pieces next year.

Mean Moules And Brown Food

My first course. Four scallops with no coral with a non-descript mound of floppy green leaves in the centre. No dressing, no seasoning. Boring limp and cost nine pounds.

Can you count how many Moules there are in the photo? There are twelve. That includes the ones that stayed shut and the empty shells too. This mean dish wins first prize for presenting me with the smallest portion of Moules I've ever had. Moules are cheap. They usually get served in a bucket with a pile of crusty bread for dunking into the liquer and a spoon for what's left. No spoon here and one half a slice of brown bread and one half a slice of white bread - mean! I was shocked into silence. I Could Not Utter. This was my lunch in a pub garden at the beach during half term.

The above plate of Brown Food is Calves Liver and Bacon on a bed of mashed potato and red cabbage - swamped in ladles of very brown, thick gravy. It cost fifteen pounds. It looked like a school dinner. It looked like somebody in the kitchen -I can't think it was a Chef - had thrown it on the plate. It was sloppy, uninviting and amateurish. It was only after the meal we discovered the excellent Chef who had cooked for us before had left. If this was prepared by his replacement then we won't be eating here again.

This was my main course following the scallops on Saturday night in a Boutique Hotel in town. I didn't bother with a desert.

Bugsworth

Went for a ride on a narrow boat along the canal at Bugsworth in the High Peaks on Sunday afternoon. I love the sea, rivers and boats but canals are a very different experience. We chugged along very slowly to Whaley Bridge then moored up for a pint and chugged back gently for a late Sunday Roast in The Navigation Inn at Bugsworth. The Semi-Trad Narrow Boat owner is refitting the inside so isn't living on it yet but hopes to within the next six months. I can see why people opt out of Real Life, buy a canal boat and a mooring and float about the Waterways. Very tempting Way Of Life.

I wonder how long it would take to take the canal route from Bugsworth to London - but would it matter? Has to be better than driving to London in a car.

Saturday night was spent in Bugsworth and a great meal with friends and then a live Gig at the Buggy Club with a terrific Blues Band and a mesmerising performance by the harmonica player. A spooky figure in the half light, dressed in black completed by his haunting musicianship. I like the Blues because I know all the words and the toons.

Should We Have Done Something?

There must be many passengers who travelled on the Manchester to Plymouth Virgin Voyager train today who feel as upset as I am right now. Especially the ones who sat in Carriage C. It was the swearing first wasn't it? A heavy male North West English brogue. But it wasn't the brogue was it. When did you first notice the baby crying and it being told to 'Shut the fuck up'. Then an older child started to cry. It wasn't just crying. The young child was gasping for breath between long drawn out sobs. The tiny baby sounded as if it was being hurt. It was scared.

The male moron, who seemed the be the father, was drunk. I heard the tins popping. I heard speech begin to slur. I heard his language get worse as he threatened to stick things up these babies arses to shut them up. One of the two females was the mother of these two unfortunate children, the other woman was her sister. They both giggled inanely at the drunken father's 'jokes'. I imagined if they didn't laugh at his jokes he would hit them. Maybe not. They sounded as bad as him. The baby began crying again and I heard one of the women say ' It's because you pinched him'.

I was sitting three aisles in front of them. I couldn't see them - but I could hear it all. I needed to see what they were like. I went to the toilet and had to pass them. Moronic male was slumped, slurring and still drinking in his seat. The sisters were immature girls. They were surroundeed by empty lager tins, plastic carrier bags, a mess of food, used nappies - pure chaos. He was a very big bloke, shaven headed and pissed. The faces of the individual travellers sitting near them said it all. Everyone looked in shock. Four young women travelling together left their seats near this family and moved into four empty seats in front of me.

I heard one of them say 'He's shaking the baby now'.

I got off the train at Taunton. This family were going on holiday to Devon.

I made no eye contact with the rest of the passengers. We were all so very British. Keeping quiet, not drawing attention to ourselves, not making the first move to do something, like interfere, when all the while two very young babies were at risk from a family who were drunk on a train in the middle of the day.

What could we have done?

Indulging

I'm beginning to enjoy these short and intensive study periods as opposed to my usual way of study - a bit every day. Yesterday and today I've dedicated to getting stuck into Virginia Woolf and Orlando and begun to make organised notes and feel so much better at getting something down on 'paper' and gaining some understanding.

It was one month ago on my train journey to the High Peaks in Derbyshire that I read Orlando for the first time - and I loathed it. I'm making the same journey this Saturday and how my opinion has changed about the book and about Virginia Woolf. I love them both. I would love a Girlie Evening with Virginia Woolf, Germaine Greer Joan Rivers and me. Goodness knows what the conversation would be like and if we'd all get along together but it could be Much Fun.

The cut off date for the TMA04 submission is in a month's time, so giving myself a break from Woolf and going to read Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca this Saturday. I've read it several times before but not since I've been studying literature so I expect to read it with a different outlook - I wonder what I'll find?

So I'm putting my books away now until Tuesday.

Half Way Through

Third assignment for 20th Century Literature returned and marked and passed. I gained much satisfaction from studying Poetry of the 1930s and I had promised my Step-Dad that I'd give him my collection of Robin Skelton's Poetry of the Thirties, but now I am keeping it and intend to do some Poetry Reading Out Loud.

I am surprised that I'm still in there with this OU course because my usually ordered life is chaotic at the moment and I'm grabbing isolated days to do intensive study and then having to leave it alone for days and days at a time. I prefer a couple of hours study at a time on a regular basis with space to contemplate. My mind can only absorb so much and I have to go back to the beginning every time rather than pick things up where I left off.

The fourth assignment is a four thousand word essay on Virginia Woolf's Orlando and her Modernism, Feminism and other -isms. I swotted all day yesterday, didn't make one single note and won't be free to get back to it for a week. There have been many essays with limits of two thousand words and I've wished there'd been more, but for this one I wish we had less.

The weekend was good. But since national newspapers have been renaming my town Notting Hill On Sea its impossible to get a table for a meal in either of our two Trendy Eating Places as they are full of Trendy People From Cities wearing Boden and Oasis. So Saturday night four of us trawled around for food and ended up eating in one of our eight Ethnic Eating Places instead.

We did two lunchtime bike rides into the countryside and even had problems parking our bikes in pub car parks because the monster 4x4s and horses took up all the spaces. This is great for our local economy but not so good if you live here and patronise these places all year round only to be firmly turned away - and not politely either. On Saturday evening we asked to sit in the courtyard at the first Trendy Eating Place and order at once (this was at seven o'clock)

'No! We have sixty bookings'.

'But nobody's here yet. We can order now before the bookings start coming in'.

'No. We're not taking any more bookings'.

There was no sign of the owner. This was a young Front Of House person we'd never seen before. I wonder if the owner would have turned us away and cash in his till?

You'll want us and our pennies on a miserable Tuesday evening in February. A wet Monday lunchtime in November.

Urban Legend

The Sun Online has this wonderful tale of Sheep from the UK and Australia being sold as Poodles in Japan. Please click to get the computer enhanced picture of a Sheep after its been tarted up at the Poodle Parlour. Very strange.

This Blogger does a pretty good job of exposing the scam but it is a good one all the same.

Almost as good as an Urban Myth going around several years ago. A couple took their five year old with them on a holiday to Cambodia. The family fell in love with a scrappy looking little puppy dog that followed them wherever they went. It moved into their hotel room. Time to return to the UK and they couldn't leave the puppy behind so they smuggled it home.

The puppy slept in the five year old's bed every night. The Puppy got ill. They called the vet. The vet tells them,

'This isn't a dog, it's a vicious Cambodian Dock Rat.'

I like the Poodle-Sheep one better.

Lavatorial TMA

After thirty two years of loyal service, my faithful Avocado Green Lavatory has spent the whole day in my front garden waiting for the Plumber Man to take him to the tip. When my Mum reads this she will tell me I Have No Shame posting a photo of my old toilet on my Blog.I shall have to reassure her that the whole of my town probably now knows that I am the last person on this earth to still have an Avocado Lavatory (and bath and hand-basin) as they sneak past my house, gasp in amazement at how plebby I am and tell all their friends down the pub. These numbers of people with knowing winks and nods will far exceed my Blog readership Mum.

Just as impressive was my son-in-law phoning me asking if I saw the momentous Carrying Across The Road Drama of my Avocado Bath at ten to four yesterday afternoon. I didn't see this. I know everyone else saw it.

Meanwhile, after two weeks with the builders in my house every day renovating the bathroom, I've had no other choice but to sit here at my laptop and work on my TMA as I select tiles, mosaics, emulsion and make more tea. So, as I was well behind with my studies, this is a Good Thing as my TMA is now written - to be left alone for a few days - then a re-read and file away until submitted.

I've only seen one Builder's Bum too. This was when the Plumber was doing things to my boiler and the young Electrician did a very good impression of vomiting at the view.

Our Elsie

There's a public house in my town called Tanners but known locally as Elsie's. So it was rather sweet to spend the weekend in the canal village of Buxworth in Derbyshire at The Navigation Inn once owned by Pat Pheonix - also known as Elsie Tanner. Very peaceful location and I even forgave the current owners for their choice of Brown Brushed Cotton Sheets on the bed, colour-co-ordinated with Brown Curtains and Brown Towels. Most unfortunate.

We walked miles along the tow paths admiring the narrow boats. Very calming imagining chugging along canals at five miles an hour, cooking on a wood burning stove, chatting to the ducks, mooring whenever -especially near an Inn.

The journey home on the train back to the West Country was amusing by contrast. An over-dressed, over-jewelled, over-made-up mother and daughter made such a fuss over their seats. It took them from Birmingham New Street to Cheltenham Spa to settle down.

They'd reserved two seats to Plymouth but were dismayed to discover that all the seats, including their reserved ones, were facing with their backs to the engine. This is because Virgin train carriages are Airline Design. It does feel as if the train could be air-bourne any moment.

They fussed and faffed in the aisle for almost an hour, declaring they would be sick if they had to travel this way round. They demanded to see the Train Manager and cornered the poor bloke who walked along the train collecting the rubbish. I expected them to insist we stopped and moved the engine to the other end of the train. The only seats facing forward were the ones with a table, but there are very few of these and they were all occupied or reserved.

One outburst was the complaint that there was no room for them to read. They settled for a while and got their reading matter out of their numerous bags, handbags and cases - The Woman's Own. I resolutely stuck my copy of Virginia Woolf's Orlando in front of my face, even though I wasn't enjoying reading one word of it and secretly wanted to swap. I was desperate to giggle then and made eye contact with another woman and we both allowed ourselves to let go as she obviously felt the same as I did about this attention seeking pair.

They changed seats three times before one thoughtful passenger offered them her forward facing seat with a table. I think she offered to exchange with them for all our sakes rather than for the two women, who by now were bordering on histronic.

At last they settled down and I felt sorry for the Hotel in Cornwall who'd have to deal with them for the coming week. It had to be a week because I've never seen so much luggage - and that is saying a lot as I'm not known for travelling light.

Halfway Through

Rather a long way up Mount Etna with even further to go. Snow, sunshine and volcanic rocks.

Halfway through AZX300 'Twentieth Century Literature - Texts and Debates' and I'm still in there. Halfway through means TMA03 is due soon and I am in the middle of studying the Poets of the 1930s and writing a 2000 word essay on Louis MacNeice and Stephen Spender and their poems relating to the Tensions Between Industrial And Rural Landscapes in that socially disturbed era.

I didn't used to like poetry. I didn't like reading it, hearing it, writing it. But I like it now. I am enjoying going under the surface of the words and interpreting the meanings. I would read the words of a poem and ask myself what do they mean - couldn't be fussed to find out. I used to think that poetry was useless. If the poets have something to say then do it in prose instead of in that fanciful, metaphoric language. Say what you mean. Tell me!

I only used to like rhyming poetry but now I think that can appear contrived, as the poet can lose the meanings/message looking for a suitable word to end a line and have to compromise. Betjeman and Ayres are good at rhyming and hanging on to their theme. I can see beat, rhythm, music within the lines of the Poets of the 1930s.

I'm learning to enjoy poems with hidden meanings, reading lovely words and phrases, having to do a bit of work for myself.

Maybe this period of successful study is because I've been stuck indoors for four whole days now as the builders are in renovating my bathroom and there's no place for me to go except sit at my computer and read the course books while they ask,

'What colour tiles do you want?'

'Kettle on?'

'Shall I put some shelves here?'

'Have you got a pencil/scissors/old towels?'

'This mirror don't fit where you wanted it- where shall we put it?'

Tomorrow the Men Who Lay Floors are coming. And the Men who Do Tiling. I think the Man Who Does Power is coming too.

My new toilet has a Lid That Closes On Its Own. It will shut itself with a silent squish. This means no more lavvy with the lid left up. Is this Male-Proof?

Sicilian And Dorset Food

I'll begin with Dorset and my lunch of Moules at the Riverside in West Bay overlooking the harbour. Seafood is my favourite food.

Above is a Campari and Blood Orange Juice in Sicily. I've been searcing for Blood Orange Juice ever since we got home as Campari won't taste right without it now.

Above is my dessert - a sort of Brandy Snap filled with ricotto and pistachio and so lovely. The waiter told me I must eat it without cutlery - directly into my mouth and suck - but he was Sicilian and rather gorgeous and I didn't do as I was told because my lipstick would have smeared.

My birthday lunch was in the Sicilian town of Taormina on the terrace of The Grand Hotel. The view from the terrace was Mount Etna. We were going up Mount Etna the next day but meanwhile above is my lunch. All manner of seafoods including something with eight legs.

It is enormously expensive to stay in The Grand and we could see why as it is so desirable so it was a special treat to lunch there. Everyone was wearing Prada, even the children, except us, unless the P stood for Peacocks.

I Look Happy.

But I wanted to post this photo into my Profile and it hasn't happened. Never mind. This is in Sicily in Taormina overlooking the remains of the Greek Theatre. All those steel erections are seating for future concerts to protect the original slabs. The Roman Theatre in Taormina is more impressive because it hasn't been renovated.

I must post photos of the Sicilian food we ate. This will be from the very, very bad to the most excellent.

Back With a Flurry

I've had to create a new Blog Identity as whatever I did I couldn't get back into Morning Loves It but I rather like my New Identity. My favourite pet's name and The Street Where I Lived.

Buggles Balham High Road. Can't see this as a publishable writer's name. Can you?

Testing now. Lots to say. Back soon.