And so...

"And so, as Tiny Tim observed,

God bless Us, Every One!"

                                                                       - CHARLES DICKENS, A Christmas Carol

Festive season anxieties

SOMEHOW, our resident domestic jinx is determined that we shall not enjoy any of the season’s cheer.

A second – brand new – set of tree lights has now partially failed and we shall have to return it to our local branch of Focus from which it was bought only on Monday.

I appear to have mislaid the receipt, however, so I just hope I don’t get any grief in exchanging it.

Between that and My Good Lady's dental problem – she lost part of a tooth – and has to get it seen to tomorrow, while I have some blood pressure issues that need addressing on the morrow’s pm.

And now, one of our car’s warning lights tells me that a headlight bulb is on the blink.

It just seems to one thing after another.

I’ve expressed before in these blogs my general sense of the other shoe syndrome that haunts me at this time of year – I’m just waiting for the next disaster to strike.

And I peer around me like a man beset by anxiety – what will it be? Still more health problems? More domestic upset? Some weather-related misfortune?

To be honest I shall not be sorry when this so-called “festive season” is over and we can all get back to a more normal life.

Recipe cards

THE “QUICK and easy” bit of yesterday’s tikka masala was the carton of cream I was instructed to pour into it – and that’s where I think it went wrong.

It was okay on first taste – the bite of the chilli in contrast to the smoothness of the cream – but by about halfway through the meal it got too much for us, too unrelentingly creamy.

Moreover, it was an odd mixture – for a masala, I’d expect to use yogurt and peppers and maybe some tomatoes. None of these were present in this “quick and easy” version of this Indian classic.

I must admit to having certain reservations about these supermarket recipe cards – you know, the ones you find in slots around the store walls.

They are there not so much designed to instruct you on how to cook certain dishes, but to sell you more of their produce.

And this applies to the recipes of some TV celebrity chefs like Delia and Heston and Jamie.

I sometimes think these people forget for whom they are writing – that’s to say, they seem to have professional cooks in mind rather than domestic amateurs like me.

The spurious authority that their names provide just helps to flog the supermarkets’ slower moving lines.

Anyhow, I shall from now on take these cards with a very large pinch of (sea) salt.

Of Chrismas telly and talk of food

I’M FLICKING through the Christmas double-issue of the Radio Times, looking for highlights to mark up.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when there’d be a good movie premier for Christmas Day evening, and maybe another for Boxing Day. Not so these days.

I suppose with so many channels to choose from, and with recording so easy to do, fixed schedules must seem something of an anachronism to most broadcasters, and no doubt to many viewers.

Still, I do miss a good film on the big day; it was just something to look forward to.

*

WE STOP by our favourite butcher to pick up a couple of chicken breasts for tomorrow’s dinner – I’m planning to do us a quick and easy tikka masala. I’m intending to make up the sauce myself.

Actually, food is the main topic of conversation at the Pub, what with reporting on Monday’s excellent Christmas dinner there and with Mr P, the music teacher, setting himself up in a catering business.

He’s literally counting the days to his retirement. He’s already getting more orders for his services that he can comfortably cope with – by all accounts he’s a very good cook indeed.

He’s planning to remodel his home kitchen to accommodate his new venture, but he’s miffed about a new EU regulation stating that every catering establishment must have a blast chiller.

“What’s a blast chiller?” I ask him.

“It’s a chill box that reduces hot food to cold in a matter of minutes to prevent bacteria forming.”

What annoys Mr P, though, is that we Brits are the only ones to take these European health regulations seriously; “The Spanish and the French just ignore them!”

I’ve no doubt that’s true. I know from experience that the French just shrug and pay lip-service to such foolishness. As if a little bacteria ever hurt anybody…

Shame about the crackling

THE ROAST loin of pork we have for dinner this evening is excellent; it’s just a shame about the crackling.

It goes all peculiar on us – soggy, flavourless and really disappointing.

My Good Lady and I are great fans of crackling, it’s the best part of the pork in our view.

We can even reminisce about great crackling we’ve enjoyed in the past – like the wonderful stuff we had at an eco-lodge we stayed at in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. So good was it, MGL lost a filling in her tooth in the eating of it and its replacement cost us £100. But we still reckon it was worth it.

So what’s gone wrong with today’s?

MGL blames the recipe, and the additional margarine she was instructed to coat the joint with. “Too much excess fat,” she decides.

(Actually, the recipe calls for butter to be rubbed onto the pork, but she thought soft tub margarine would be easier to spread.)

Anyhow, we feel a little cheated, although the meat itself was very tasty along with the roast potatoes and the carrots. The roasted apples would have been better as plain apple sauce, but that’s a minor quibble.

What’s more I’m looking forward to the next few weeks. Friends will tell you how much I appreciate a weekend roast and to come, in short order, are roast goose, roast turkey (on Christmas Day) and roast belly pork for the New Year. All washed down with copious amounts of good red wine.

Oh yes, my cup runneth over indeed!

Waiting game

THEY MOVE you from one waiting area to another – and sometimes back again; each department you visit seems to have its own.

Anyhow, for an appointment which I thought might take fifteen to twenty minutes ends up being most of the morning.

First I’m seen by a rather pleasant chap, the specialist in the hearing department, and he gives me a preliminary examination.

I’m then sent to have my ears cleaned by a device that might have come out of a James Bond movie – a nozzle attached to machine that wheezes and groans and de-gunges my ears of their heavy wax build-up.

Next – after a suitable wait – I’m despatched to the other side of the clinic to have my hearing tested and measured, and once again I’m attached to a machine which sends faint tones into my ears and at each tone I’m to press a button on a handset I’m holding.

Trouble is, the tones are so faint, I’m not sure if I’m hearing them or if I’m just imaging doing so.

Eventually, the machine next to me cranks into life and prints out a long stream of results. Looking at this now, I get a sinking feeling that my fate is now sealed.

Back to the Ear, Nose and Throat Department and my specialist again: my tinnitus, it seems, is due to a loss of hearing in the higher frequencies and as a result I’m now listening to some of my own body’s functions – electrical currents passing to my brain, maybe the circulation of my blood, and so on.

A normal consequence of growing older, I’m told.

There’s mention of my needing a hearing aid, perhaps, in the not too distant future, and I’m suddenly feeling ten years older! Did I ever think, in my youth, that I would ever be likely to need such a thing? I didn’t even think so this morning!

They are holding off for the moment, in the hope that things might now settle on their own account; I’m to make another appointment in six months time to re-evaluate my circumstances.

More waiting! Meanwhile, I’m to continue putting in the drops.

More computer frustrations

I’M HAVING problems with one of our computers again.

A little while ago, I installed the full version of the security suite from AVG, a replacement to the free edition I’d been using up until then.

To begin with it worked fine, the anti-virus and firewall software doing their jobs a treat.

Then, suddenly – nothing! The program completely ceased working.

It’s still there, in the installed programs list; but my computer refuses to recognise it or to run it.

My attempts to uninstall it have come to nought – logically enough, the computer cannot remove something that doesn’t exist.

I’ve loaded the remove program from AVG, but that too refuses to recognise the security suite’s presence on my hard drive.

So here I am, stuck with a program that put me in a real double-bind. It’s like having a mouthful of food that you can neither swallow nor spit out.

Of course, I’ve sent AVG an email of complaint but so far the only response is an automated reply telling me to go the faq section of their help site.

There really are times when I’d like to pick this whole machine up and drop it into the deepest quicksand pool in Morecambe Bay!

Twilight

I SEEM TO have been a little delinquent with my blog for the last few days; my only excuse is that my own routines have been somewhat upset, as well as my sleeping hours.

My Good Lady has been a bit out of kilter, too – so much so, that I seem to have done quite a lot of the cooking this week.

On a more positive note, we’ve finally got our hi-fi unit repaired and returned – it’s taken nearly a month, mainly because Curry’s right hand doesn’t know what their left hand is doing.

Anyhow, we stop by the Pub coming out of town, and we find there, in the Geriatrics’ Corner, a character I always dread to see.

We call him “Twilight”.

He must be in his late sixties or early seventies by now, a crumple-faced, hollow cheeked man with long, thinning, untidy grey hair and who, I’m convinced, always wears the same clothes – mainly shades of grey in all their dreadful, crumpled familiarity.

He somehow seems to think that I enjoy his company; whenever he sees me he makes a beeline for yours truly and parks himself next to me.

In fact, I tolerate his presence, and not always with the best of grace: I mean he’s not a bad man, he’s just such a bore!

He’s full of endless, long-winded stories which he fondly believes are of consuming interest to me. Often he’ll start a tale and half-way through it he’ll have forgotten the beginning. Nor does he believe in sparing me any tortuous details – not for Twilight is the virtue of cutting a long story short, oh no!

But that’s not the worst. He has an annoying habit of interrupting my conversation with someone else, and insisting that I pay him exclusive attention. If I try to ignore him, he’ll tug at my sleeve or my trouser leg until he has my full concentration again.

And he just will not let me go!

Now I hate being rude or making a scene, but I’m really biting my tongue today with this deeply irritating – if unconscious – rudeness.

I’m quite convinced he’s not “all there”, and no doubt he is a lonely man – but why, oh why, does he have to pick on me!

The view across the Bay

WE’RE DRIVING along Morecambe’s Marine Drive and the view across to the far shore takes our breaths away.

Across the vast expanse of the Bay, over the wet, gleaming sands and mudflats, the Lakeland fells stand out clear and pin sharp in the golden light of the late afternoon.

The higher peaks have already got the first winter snows on them.

There was a time when I never left home without a camera bag on the back seat, but not so in these, my post-photographic days; for once, though, I really wish I’d brought the camera with me.

It’s one of those rare days when the view is quite simply spectacular.

Makes me realise afresh how lucky we are to be living on the edge of Morecambe Bay.

Foody fads

OUR DINNER this evening is home-made sweet and sour pork, and it seems strange to say that it’s the first time I’ve attempted this Chinese classic.

The pork fillet is cut into chunks and marinated in dry sherry and light soy sauce.

My Good Lady has already made up the batter – a simple flour and egg goo; we dunk the pork into seasoned flour then into the batter and fry it, in batches, for a few minutes and set it aside.

Next I stir-fry some cubed pepper and sliced spring onions, then return the cooked pork along with some pineapple chunks and sliced red chillies into the wok and let it all warm through.

Finally, I pour in the sauce mixture – a blend of pineapple juice, brown sugar, tomato ketchup, light soy sauce and white wine vinegar.

As the blend is looking a little runny, MGL makes up a cornflour mixture to thicken it up a bit.

We serve it on plain, boiled long-grain rice, and wash it down with a German Riesling.

Oh yes!

Over dinner we discuss some of our friends’ odd attitudes towards food.

Take PD for example. Every weekend he has a roast, but then for days afterwards he has the leftover meat in sandwiches and salads and such like until it’s all gone.

It doesn’t seem to occur to him to freeze the stuff and vary it with other things.

It would keep for weeks, if not months, and he could enjoy it over a period.

Pre-freezer days, yes, we would have had to eat the meat before it went off, but today…?

And then there’s Steve, who always buys his vegetables prepared, and ready for the pot.

Not for him the chore of peeling and slicing – to us this is part of the fun of cooking; it doesn’t take but a few minutes and it costs a fraction of the price.

Odd, as I say.

But then, when we tell people about having two ounces of minced beef in a meal, or half a tin of sardines in a flan, no doubt they think of us as odd.

There’s nowt so strange as folk, is there?

The domestic jinx strikes again!

WE’RE GOING through one of our domestic appliances hiccup sessions, when not one, not two, not even three things go wrong, but four!

First it’s our Sony micro hi-fi system which packs up – still under warranty I’m glad to say, but I just hope Curry’s don’t give me any grief over it – their customer service, I know from experience, has much need of improvement.

Next, it’s our flame effect gas fire that’s packed up – just about a month after its annual service. The fire’s got one of these “lifetime” guarantees, but with enough small print and exclusions attached to it that I wonder if it’s actually worth anything. We shall see.

Not to be outdone, our new central heating boiler is behaving a little oddly, too. I’ve set the timer to some hours convenient for us, only to find it’s coming on outside those hours! It’s as if the thing has got a mind and will of its own. I won’t call anybody in yet, for this – I’ll play around with the timer for a bit and see if it’s some error in programming on my part, but I’m beginning to feel a little frayed.

Last, but not necessarily the least, a light bulb blows in one of our table lamps – the globe part of it literally pops out of it’s mount, and the screw fitting gets wedged in so tightly it takes me nearly an our to prise it out…

I’m convinced there’s a domestic jinx haunting us…

Vinous bit of business

“WOULD anyone want to buy five bottles of Riesling for twenty pounds?” asks Big Robert, the manager/chef at the Pub.

Five bottles for twenty pounds? Sounds tempting. Depending what sort of Riesling it is, of course.

“What sort is it?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” says Robert. “I found it at the back of our wine store. I’ve had it on special offer for ages, but no one is buying. So, for today only, five bottles, twenty quid. I’m losing money, but what the hell!”

I tell him I’m interested, but I need to know what it is. “I’m not buying some Austrian tractor fuel,” I say.

Rob waddles off – he waddles rather than walks, so big a man is he – and comes back with two different labels, both German. One of them he opens, and pops it into an ice bucket.

“Birthday present for PD!” he announces, dropping it on our table, along with three glasses. “Cheers!” he says, waddling off.

We sup the wine – and it’s excellent. We can’t decipher the label, unfortunately – our knowledge of German wines is somewhat limited – but our interest is definitely awakened.

I glance at My Good Lady and she gives me the nod.

“Okay, I’ll buy!” I say.

And so, we bring home our spoils. We open a bottle this evening – a Valckenberg Riesling 2005. Well-chilled, it quite sup-able, although we find it’s a little tired as white wines go.

Still for the price we’ve paid… As I say to Rob: “Nice doing business with you!”

Of wasp stings and TV shows

THE GERIATRIC’S Corner is fuller than it has been of late – one or two of the Pub’s Friday crowd have reappeared.

Mr P, the music teacher, comes over to tell us he had to go to A & E at the local hospital this morning. “A wasp flew into my mouth and stung me on the inner lip!”

The result was a dramatic allergic reaction – first the side of his face swelled up, then his neck and part of his shoulder!

A colleague of his at school took a photo of him: PD remarks, “My God! You look just like the Botox man!”

“It felt like it,” says Mr P. “They rushed me straight through A & E and gave me an injection to counter the effects of the wasp sting. It was a close call, though. I could have died!”

On a more positive note, though, Mr P is off to buy a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream for Sunday evening, and I can guess the reason – the new season of Desperate Housewives is due to begin on C4 on Sunday.

This is a little ritual with Mr P and his wife – they sup Baileys while watching their favourite TV show.

Mr P cannot praise the programme highly enough: “I have all the first six seasons on DVD – I’ve only seen half of them yet. But it’s really wonderful,” he insists, “you ought to try it!”

Maybe we will, although without the Baileys.

Some of the others pooh-pooh any American import, though – they just won’t give anything from across the Atlantic a chance. “It’s all rubbish!” says Aircraft Steve dismissively. “All those shows are full of Yanks in their glossy lifestyles.”

I have to take issue with him there; “Did you never watch M*A*S*H?” I ask.

Steve admits he did, and we spend a happy few moments reminiscing over some of the wonderful characters of this truly ground-breaking TV series, by turns comic and dark in its portrayal of the realities of serving in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean war. Hawkeye, BJ, Radar, Colonel Potter, Hot Lips, Clinger… we still remember these people with genuine affection.

“Yeah, you’re right,” admits Steve finally, “maybe it isn’t all rubbish."

A special place for Christmas

YOU CAN tell Christmas is on its way by the slew of leaflets and posters advertising festive meals that are appearing in pubs and restaurants all over the place.

We’ve got our own little collection, in preparation for our Christmas Day lunch out.

No question about it, you have to book early for the big day – the better places get filled up months in advance, leaving only the more dubious or indifferent available.

We’re determined to try and find something a little better than last year’s venue.

I’m not a difficult man to please, generally; roast turkey with the trimmings does me very nicely.

Not exactly rocket science, you would think, yet it amazes me how many so-called professional cooks can’t get it right.

Which reminds me, have you been watching Masterchef: the Professionals (BBC 2) this week?

Amazing how many can’t even get basic culinary skills right.

All right maybe you don’t expect the standards of Michel Roux Jr., one of the judges, from these contenders, but some level of competence at least is surely required.

I watch these professionals open-mouthed with disbelief.

Errors in the preparation of simple vegetables, serious faults in the making of such basic sources that even a first year student ought to know how to do, and presentations that end up looking more like car crashes than elegantly served dishes…

I hope never to dine in one of their establishments.

All the more reason to find that special place for Xmas early!

Wok triumphant

IT’S ANOTHER stir-fry day. And of course, as champion stirrer, it falls to me to sweat over the wok.

I do us Ken Hom’s recipe for egg fried rice – oddly, something I’ve never tried before.

My Good Lady has already boiled up some long-grain white rice and we’ve allowed it to go cold.

I beat an egg into some sesame oil, then stir-fry some roughly chopped onions in smoking-hot groundnut oil. I toss in the egg mixture, and then tip in the rice and stir the whole lot vigorously for about 3 minutes.

Finally, I add some diced cucumber, peeled and seeded, a good spoonful of sweetcorn and a splash of chilli oil.

Five minutes later, I’m serving up, to accompany a ready-meal of tomato marinated chicken which MGL has warmed up the microwave.

Not at all bad: we both attack it with gusto!

Another triumph for my trusty old wok!

Harvest time

WITH THE vegetable harvest safely gathered in – indeed, most of it now safely consumed – I take the opportunity of a dry day to go out and uproot our tomato plants.

I’ve still got some purple sprouting broccoli in my patio containers – but they shall be out for the winter, ready for harvesting next spring.

I feared I might end up with a glut of tomatoes, but except for a few late-ripening ones, most of them have gone, with my Black Russians definitely being top of the tomato pops.

I’ve still got a few green Moneymakers, wrapped up in bags with rotting bananas – the bananas, as I understand, give off a gas which helps the toms to ripen.

Anyhow, it’s my experimental cook session later, and I do us one of my stir-fries, a beef Penang, using up some spare rump steak and some left-over coconut milk, all cooked quickly with Thai red curry paste, fish sauce and brown sugar.

Most enjoyable.

This evening, My Good Lady suggests opening a bottle of Riesling, a small consolation for winning nothing on the National Lottery again!

Ah, well…

Enjoyable evening

THE FOUR of us are enjoying a Cantonese meal at Ricky’s.

It’s Lyn’s birthday treat, and PD invited us to come and help celebrate the evening with them.

The food, as usual, is excellent: My Good Lady and I both select a chicken and mushroom dish along with some plain boiled rice.

Our technique with the chop sticks is much admired; “If I tried to use them,” says PD, “I’d still be here at midnight!”

And he goes on to tell of how our friend, Dick Gobble, insists on using sticks, with the result that the front of his white shirts end up covered with food by the end of the evening.

After the meal, the restaurant brings out a surprise birthday cake – a tiny chocolate one, topped with six candles – one for each decade.

The waiters then join us is a spirited rendition of “happy birthday to you” – and we make sure that Lyn is well and truly embarrassed!

An enjoyable evening for one and all.

A little education...

I’VE BEEN a bit under the weather lately, with some flu-like symptoms compounding a gippy tum.

I do manage to make – and enjoy – a shepherd’s pie yesterday, using some leftover salt marsh lamb, and today I give My Good Lady a hand in cooking up some sautéed new potatoes and some of my very own, and very delicious, tomatoes to accompany her floddies, her little Rösti bacon patties.

I even manage to get us to the farmers’ market where we stock up on locally sourced beef and pork for the month – including our favourite Cumberland and black pudding sausages.

And yes, I have to admit, despite reservations, I manage to drag myself to the last of my weekly carers’ meetings – this time learning to communicate.

I have to say I listen to the theories of how to use words effectively with some distraction, and not a little awe.

Clearly, this session isn’t intended for the likes of me.

I have, after all, been a sometime writer of both fiction and non-fiction, of plays and stories; I’m aware that whole branches of both philosophy and psychology are devoted to the use of words.

I can look up from this computer and see well-thumbed copies of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus – classics, both, in the field of language and logic.

At one point I’m distracted by being reminded of Gregory Bateson’s theories of the double-bind and its influence on the onset of mental illness, especially schizophrenia.

And I’m longing to point out that some of the illustrations they are making have been brilliantly demonstrated by R.D. Laing in his little book, Knots.

And I know I have to remain – painfully – silent.

This is not an academic seminar, it’s intended as a practical session, designed to give ordinary carers a chance to express themselves with precision and effect, and to understand how to use simple logical techniques to be assertive without falling prey to aggression.

There are times, though, when I feel that having had a little education is a seriously frustrating thing…

Saintly reflections

I USED to enjoy the Saint.

Not the television series – with Roger Moore in his pre-James Bond days – still repeated over and over on ITV 4.

No, I’m talking about the books.

Leslie Charteris – a much better writer, in my opinion, than Ian Fleming – wrote about thirty of them, novels, novellas, collections of short stories, all featuring his dashing, eponymous hero.

And great fun they were too.

I’ve still got a couple of the novels – and I’m revisiting them…

Oh dear…

It’s said that you should never go back to where you’ve been before – first impressions can never be revived.

Sadly, true.

A cardboard character, against a cardboard background.

Not that it’s badly written – as I say, I still think Charteris is a good, entertaining writer; but I get the feeling that Simon Templar became something of an industry with him –Charteris had to produce.

And it shows.

All right, I can forgive the rather dated plots – many of these books were written in 1930s and 40s.

But the lack of any change, any transition; the Saint even in his old age never actually ages.

All right, yes, he stops smoking in one of the later books, but that’s about it.

He’s still as debonair, as handsome in the 1980s as he was in the 1920s.

Maybe I’m asking too much from a fictional character, but if you’re keeping the character alive, a little change is welcome.

Even in someone as iconic as the Saint.

Hey, just a thought – what about a new Saint, a new Simon Templar for our age? One who goes after corrupt politicians and crooked bankers?

Actually, maybe the stories aren’t as dated as I thought….

Breakfasts long gone by

THE Black Russians in the tomato patch are coming along nicely.

We had the pleasure of trying them the other day – and very excellent they were too, just the kind of flavour I remember from when I was nowt but a nipper.

My father used to grow his own tomatoes of course – most working men did in those days in our little town in darkest, industrtrial Lancashire.

And we were lucky to live on a corner terrace of two-up, two-down houses, and so our back garden was considerably larger than most of the others adjoining us.

I remember one of the meals my father used to make for himself and for me was fried breakfast; consisting of crispy rashers of bacon bought from the grocers across the road from us, and sliced to our exact requirements.

Eggs spitting in fat – no nonsense about using oil in those days – and my dad’s freshly picked tomatoes sizzling in the pan with a piece of bread.

Oh yes, I can hear those breakfasts now!

They were a real treat once in a while; my mother never approved of fried breakfast for some reason, so my father and I used to behave like a pair of conspirators behind her back.

Above all, though, were the wonderful flavours of bacon, eggs and fried tomatoes – just the sort of flavour my Black Russians have.

Not fried of course in these more health-conscious days – baked, rather, but still just as delicious!

Numbers

NOW I’m the first to admit I’m no great shakes when it comes to maths.

Some people have a talent for numbers, others don’t – and I don’t!

The advent of the pocket calculator was a great boon to me, for a spot of everyday counting, but when it comes to doing our annual accounts it becomes a bit of a longwinded chore.

Which is why I’ve decided to learn to use a spreadsheet program.

Windows Excel is said to make doing things like household accounts a snip!

This software is said to make the calculator a thing of the past.

Forget paper and pencil, they say, it can all be done on computer…

Yes, well…

Unfortunately, if you visit Microsoft’s website dealing with Excel and its uses, you find rather large blocks of information missing.

Such as how to set up the program for your needs; my first try ends up so muddled I have to scrap it and start again.

Then there are the curious idiosyncrasies of the program itself, such as why it sometimes insists on putting a dollar sign into the data cell. Every time you enter a number in the cell, up pops the blasted $ again.

So here I am, laboriously typing out long lines of numbers into the rows and columns and by the time I’ve checked and double checked each bit of data and somehow got the thing to cough up an answer, I’m wondering whether it wasn’t easier and quicker to stick with the old pocket calculator after all.

Evening celebratory

OUR big 35^th wedding anniversary has passed off in quiet pleasure and great contentment.

The meal at Ricky’s Cantonese restaurant is excellent as usual: after our starters of prawn balls and crab and sweet corn soup, we both opt for the pork and duck Cantonese style – a specialty of the house.

To the clack of chop sticks all you can hear is the umm-ing noises of enjoyment and appreciation from both of us.

Back at home the champagne is nicely chilling away for us in the fridge.

To the sounds of Andy Williams – the king of easy listening (although his rendition of Schubert’s Ave Maria is one of the most moving I’ve ever heard) – we toast our great good fortune in getting hitched all those years ago.

At one point I ask My Good Lady if she regrets not having gone to the Great Barrier Reef, as we’d half planned for this occasion (our coral wedding, you understand!).

Her answer is a definite “No!”

The downturn in our financial circumstances due to the credit crunch and the uncertainty of MGL’s disability benefits due to the renewal of her DLA would have made the trip impossible at this time.

Anyhow, thanks to Ricky, thanks to Mr Williams, thanks to Mr (Piper) Heidsieck’s bubbly we’ve had a very agreeable evening indeed.

Long may they continue!

A ringing in the head

THE RINGING in my ears is back again with a vengeance, after a couple of days’ respite.

And so bad is it, I’m actually feeling dizzy; I drag my way around our supermarket shop today with the world spinning around me.

I’m to do us a prawn curry for dinner this evening, but I have to own up that I’m not in a fit state.

My Good Lady and I decide to go along to our village local for dinner and this proves to be a bit of a disaster.

We order the plaice fillets with boiled new potatoes and a salad.

After a 45 minute wait the dinner arrives, with the fish badly overcooked and the lemon butter sauce too sharp by half.

All very disappointing because usually, the food here is good.

To cheer ourselves up, I open the bottle of wine we’ve been chilling for the dinner we didn’t have at home, and to some cool sounds of a Fifties compilation CD, we enjoy our tipple of Argentinean Torrontes – a rather intriguing grape variety.

If only the ringing in my head would stop!

Light bulbs, fry-ups and plans

WHY IS IT that, when light bulbs blow, they go two or even three at a time?

Anyhow, after a rummage in the shed, I discover I have no replacements.

Oh yes, lots of others – I generally buy them by the half dozen – but no 60 watt ES energy saving bulbs, the second to go this week.

So, we’ve got a few things to do today: the public library for renewal of My Good Lady’s parking badges, then to the dentist for our bi-annual check-up, then to pick up PD and to take him along to the Pub for an hour or so, and last but not least, stop off at our branch of Focus to pick up said bulbs.

Back home, I do this evening’s dinner, a stir fry, an old favourite: a sauté of par-boiled, cubed potatoes, cooked gammon finely chopped, sliced onions and diced peppers, all done in my trusty wok. I serve this with a couple of poached eggs and some baked beans.

A basic fry-up in other words, and very tasty it turns out to be.

Evening. We open a bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and to the sound of the divine Ella doing her Rodgers and Hart Songbook we discuss our immediate and near future plans.

With MGL’s successful award of her disability benefit, we are free to make such plans, but oddly, neither of us have much appetite for travel. With our excellent stay in the south of France last May, and our long warm summer spell in which we dined outdoors so often, we really don’t feel much need for another holiday.

Maybe a short drive over to Harrogate to visit some old chums, and yes maybe we’ll book a table for Christmas Day lunch to save us the hassle of cooking. But that aside, we’re happy just to stay at home and watch my tomatoes ripen.

Even for our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary this Monday the most we’re thinking of doing is dining our favourite Cantonese restaurant (and okay, yes, maybe we’ll open nice a bottle of bubbly when we get home).

Oh dear, what sad little lives we do lead!

Experimental cook day

IT’S MY experimental cook day, and I’m having a bash at a venison in beer casserole.

I’m a little nervous because I know that game of any sort can end up a little tough and dry if overcooked – the meat tends to a degree of fatless solidity unusual in more common cuts.

I also dig up another grow bag of my new spuds – a better harvest this time, the extra couple weeks having done wonders for their growth.

I begin by browning off the meat in a mix of oil and butter; then I add the finely diced onion, the liqueur – ale and chicken stock – a good dash of seasoning, a little brown sugar, pinch of allspice, a couple of bay leaves and some cloves, and then I let the mixture gently plop away for an hour or so.

The potatoes I just serve boiled – new spuds only really need a knob of butter on them.

And though I do say so myself, the end result is pretty scummy, with the venison being just about spot on.

The only kitchen accident is in opening the wine – the neck of the bottle cracks under the waiter’s friend, and I end up with a bloody finger.

Doesn’t stop us enjoying the contents, though.