Category: uncategorized
I am Beastie, see me walk!
We were in Leicester this weekend, for Mother’s day. The weekend ended up being rather less than stellar, as Katy wasn’t feeling well and the oldies were in fine form. The Beastie, however, was full of beans:
You might need to boos the volume way up high for the videos, btw.
The Beastie is also becoming a fruit monster:
That last one is impressive. He grabbed an apple out of Pam’s fruit bowl and proceeded to eat it. All of it. It was almost as big as he was. And yet it was eaten. With much slobbering. There are lots more pictures here: http://flubu.com/various_pics/ben_early_2010/, including some taken when my mom came to visit in January.
Pictures and comics, oh my!
So, firstly, the pictures. Becca from the nursery took these. Apparently, bouncing on the trampoline is his favouritest thing in the whole wide universe:
Then, the comics. They haven’t been processed for the comics page yet, but they will get done eventually.
I am officially a dirty old man
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[Recipe] Roasted rabbit stew
1 rabbit, jointed in 6 portions
6 sausages, cut in chunks
6 rashers smoked bacon, cubed
6 large roma tomatoes, cut in segments
4 onions, sliced
3 bay leaves
1 rosemary sprig
500ml white wine
salt, pepper
olive oil
0. Preheat oven to 180C.
1. Brown the rabbit pieces in olive oil on high heat in an oven-proof pot. Remove and set aside.
2. Reduce heat. Brown bacon, sausages and onions in some more olive oil until well caramelised.
3. Deglaze with wine. Add rabbit pieces, tomato segments and herbs. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Roast in oven for 1 hour.
5. Remove rabbit pieces and set aside. Return pot to oven for another 20 minutes to further stew the vegetables.
6. Check stew seasoning. Place rabbit pieces on top of stew and return pot to oven for 10 minutes to re-heat.
I used honey and wholegrain mustard sausages we get from the Giggly Pig people at the market and a nice Riesling for the wine. All in all, a very good first try and the recipe.
The hands
Katy and I have built-in hand puppets that seem to have a life of their own. They can be quite opinionated (Katy’s hand is quite adamant that Rhianna is a skanky ho festering with chlamydia and herpes). We;re not entirely sure when they came to life, nor are we really sure if we’re completely sane or not.
Still, they seem harmless and making them talk at the dinner table seems to wind Mel up to no extent, so it’s all good.
Countdown in TXTSPEAK
I had a silly conversation with Katy last weekend, where we were discussing how an updated version of Countdown aimed at teen-aged kids would go down:
CONSONANT!
CONSONANT!
SYMBOL!
NUMBER!
CONSONANT!
CONSONANT!
vowel, please
Presenter: Dude, what’s a vowel???
Taking steps to take control
My therapist tells me that I need to work on becoming more spontaneous and stop worrying about all the bad shit that can happen in the world. I need to “feel the fear and do it anyway”. I need to accept that I can deal with consequences when they happen, if they happen instead of making a big mental mountain out of everything.
As such, I am taking the first steps in finally seeing if/how I can become independently mobile. I have sent off the paperwork to get my provisional license from the DVLA and will be booking a motorcycle driving course by the end of the month if all goes well.
Booah!
Want pie now!
I recent IM conversation with Katy :)
(13:46:38) Rc: heyho
(13:46:44) Rc: how’s you feeling?
(13:46:53) Rc: have you had pie?
(13:47:36) Rc: how be the beastie?
(13:47:41) Rc: has he had pie?
(13:47:51) Rc: can I have pie?
(13:47:54) Rc: hmmmmmmm, pie!
(13:48:04) Rc: pie! pie! pie! pie! pie!
(13:48:17) Katy: i am currently having pie
A weekend in food
So, from my last few posts, you’ll have noticed that I was a bit busy in the kitchen last weekend. I made won ton soup for Saturday lunch, chawanmushi and dobinmushi for Saturday dinner and we went completely mad for sunday dinner (and our Valentine’s day feast) by making a 3 course meal of baked Camembert fondue starter, t-bone steak with mushroom sauce and baked potato entrée and a dark chocolate tart for pudding. Calories be damned, we needed it.
The food was good but the health was bad. I had a horrible throat for most of last week and now it’s moved upwards to my ears. I think I have some sort of ear infection because my left ear was completely blocked yesterday and every time I coughed or hiccuped, it felt like I had a rusty nail shoved in my lughole. Yay, fun times!