Bon Voyage Gaeorg!

When I used to work in London and live in Kent, I looked forward to arriving at my car as much as arriving home (Husband was on nights a lot so house was often empty). Gae was so welcoming and warm and safe and supereasy to drive.

When we moved up to London, he carried our things (along with a van, Phil's car and my parents' car you understand. We are not mimimalists). Phil's car got sold and Gaeorg took us shopping and on many many brilliant camping and surfing holidays.

Gaeorg on honeymoon :D

Totally dwarfing the surfboard on the roof with his uber massiveness. And believe me, that is a massive surfboard! 

Poop poop!

When we briefly moved back with our parents by accident, he came and provided a mobile suitcase / wardrobe service. Then he chugged over to our next home and braved the wilds of Woolwich. He probably got away with things there because he was small and unobtrusive. He had a BIG HOLIDAY when we lived in Reading and got to live in a very swish underground parking place.

Bathothian parking spot

Finally he came to Bath and now, has gone on to Devon! With a very nice lady who wanted him to drive her dog-in-a-bag around in. Au revoir Gaeorg!


(perhaps I get slightly too attached to vehicles.)

Weekend is nigh!

Yes yes it is soon to be the weekend and I am VERY EXCITED!!

Tonight I am going to get lost in a big whirl of housework to prepare for the arrival of my aunt tomorrow. It's her 60th birthday and she is travelling from Yorkshire to spend it relaxing in THE BEST SPA I HAVE EVER BEEN TO (this is a high accolade) at the Macdonald Bath Spa hotel. We are going to see some friends on Saturday night and then on Sunday it is Aunt's Birthday Meal (also at the Macdonald hotel). Lots of family are coming and we are going to have a big meal and then come back to our house for tea and cake. Am not sure we've had 16 people in this house all at once before... we have had bbqs but there was garden available, which is not the case when there is frost on the ground.. inhospitable hosting that would be..!

So yes, I am working from home and have started to clean the oven (felt I should but god knows why, it's going to be a tight squeeze in here but I am not actually anticipating people to climb into the oven) and have popped out to buy tulips and strawberries. I think these are essential for birthdays. I attempted to make the guest bed but it's a sofa bed and as soon as I get one end of the mattress to lie flat, the other leaps into the air like a sort of writhing demented iron sea monster. Yes, exactly like one of those. So am waiting for Husband to return from the horsepittle to wrestle it into submission.

In other news, last night we sold Gaeorg!! He has been in our family for five years and has been amazing. For anyone who cares, I totally recommend a Yaris. He never broke down (L). Very sad to see him go but onwards and upwards.. we are acquiring a new car on Sunday. Called Roger. Adopting him from some lovely friends who are fleeing for the good life in NZ. Very excited! Also car will be nice reminder of Tom and Barbara. Problem is, am not sure we will EVER be able to get rid of Roger for that reason. Unless we move to NZ. And obviously we can't do that, as I would have to change the title of this blog.

Hope your weekends are shaping up to be fantastic! Here are the flowers I bought for the birthday girl:

And we have started decorating with this EXCELLENT wooden bunting received from Steph-who-likes-men-in-historic-costumes:

I know my camera is rubbish!

See you later!

Regal hens

Things are very posh in the Bath. Even our eggs have crowns:

They have most likely come from the Queen's hens. Mmhmm.

I made three of the royal eggs into these awesome brownies:

My kitchen could be more photogenic. Next house -> pretty kitchen!

They are particularly awesome because they are both delicious and low in  fat. They achieve their low-fat status by being made with mayo and not butter. Husband was enjoying his brownie until I informed him of this. He continued to eat it but I could tell his heart wasn't in it.

You know I said I made some muffins the other day? Well, they were inadvertently low fat as well. About 48 hours after I baked them, I opened the microwave and found a bowl of melted-and-re-hardened butter. They turned out ok though, I really don't know why anyone needs butter when we have mayonnaise, or simply microwaves to abandon it in..

Muffin man

We were looking at our bank accounts last night and realised that it's pretty easy to spend upwards of £30 a month on muffins. Yes, muffins. If one of you in your relationship (naming no names) has a penchant for muffins, 'usually the chocolate one, but sometimes the white choc and raspberry one' and visits a certain green and white high street coffee shop every weekday to gaze at and potentially purchase one, 20x-at-least-£1.50 = at-least-£30.

£30 = dinner at a nice Bathothian restaurant! So, we went here in the virtual life and we went to Sainsburys in the real life and then made 36 muffins (half white choc and blueberry and half apple and cinnamon (made the recipe up for the latter). Unfortunately I had forgotten that most muffin recipes fail to put enough sugar in so they all taste a bit like bread. We now have 35 bready muffins in the freezer for one of us to take to work every day and chomp their way thorough. Total cost = about £5. Brilliant! Hopefully.

Finished the chest of drawers!

Lifesize wooden cat for scale. Hehe. Not really.

What do you think? I am v pleased with how it turned out. As well as the exterior renovation, we cleaned the whole thing, polished it and lined the drawers with some pretty wallpaper samples. Our linen now has a fantastic, solid, clean new home! So very pleasing. We ummed and ahhed about what type of handles to use and in the end, budget decided it for us. We went for the cheapest vaguely matching ones, amusingly named 'granny knobs'. We might switch them out for some old-looking brass ones to match the original knobs that are on the middle drawers when we get rich though. Swanky.

As a reminder, this is what it looked like before:

You can read more about the happy transformation here

I am very proud of it. And it provided a welcome distraction from the uncertanties of flat-selling. It also made me think twice about buying a house that needs lots of renovating in the form of sanding down woodwork. I am not sure my attention span would take it.

In other news, I have been busy in the kitchen:

Not the most photogenic of things I know!

They were meant to be watercress quiches but I accidentally bought bags of mixed peppery leaves instead of watercress, so they were sort of salad quiches.. sounds gross but was nice. One was for cakey Vicky's birthday and the other was for the nourishment of Husband.

Tonight I am off to see the nice lady who I sew cushions for (I can sew one for you too if you like, for your chair or bed or campervan or garden or child or anything else that is not soft or pretty* enough!), and on Friday we might go and see War Horse or The Artist. Might. Then off to Swinners at the weekend to say goodbye to some of our good friends who are departing this life for one on the other side of the world, which makes me sad and I don't want to think about it! Next weekend is the Bath birthday celebration of Dingleby, my aunt, which is VERY EXCITING so that is nice! I will tell you all about it.

*excluding children

Sew Kindley

I made this Kindle case for husband when we got married.

Nice handmade Kindle case :)

It was fairly straightforward to make; just a long quilted rectangle which you then double back on itself to make the pouch, leaving a flap for the 'lid'. A good button is essential in these situations and I chose a wooden one for husband because when he met he was rather, hmm, backward when it came to technology and insisted he did not want a mobile phone because they were made of plastic and were not available in more quality materials (which apparently included wood). Unfortunately his moral stance has since eroded and he now has an impressive Apple habit, but I thought he might appreciate the sentiment.

I used a nice bit of binding tape to join the two fabrics I used. Birds featured quite a bit at our wedding so this was a nice way to tie in the weddingy theme without being overly girly.

He seems to like it. The Kindle lives in there, in any case. Hehehe!

Happy Friday everyone!!

Chillier and chillier

Just wanted to drop in to say how much I love my new chopping board:



Don't mind the weird caulk by the cooker. The gas man prised out the old cooker and then fitted a smaller one and filled in the broken edges with bath sealer. I stood there in horror feeling pleased that it was not my house. If it WAS my house, this kitchen would be in the bin!!





It's really brightened my chopping experience. Not a time of day that I have ever really contemplated as being particularly important before, but it is nice to make as many things cheery as possible, isn't it?!

I was making a chilli. I found five cans of different types of beans for £2 at Sainsbo's:

Yes, I also found a glass of red wine.

The chilli recipe came from my friend Vicky. I usually make it to my mum's recipe, but thought I'd try something new. Paprika featured heavily. It was great - nicer than it looks in the picture!!