Welcome To The World Lucas

There is another Lucas in the family! Well a real Lucas this time, I just call Luke that occasionally. This Lucas , however, is even more gorgeous (but I won’t tell the other Luke that). I never thought anything of babies really untill the family prepared for this one. Then I met him in his little cute clothes, I got to hold him (and I didn’t drop him!) and he grabbed my little finger!

A difficult decision for me was what to buy for his ‘welcome to earth’ present. He will grow out of clothes quickly, even if they are adorable, and nappies aren’t really the nicest present! Although they are certainly a practical one!

So I decided to roll out my quilting skills again and make a baby quilt.

To do this, I chose fabric that had a personal meaning for the mum and dad. I then had to go through a series of cutting squares from a cardboard template and stitching together untill I had two sides. It was then a case of trying to match the sides up and hope I didn’t fix them together wonkily! A final check that it was ‘baby-proofed’ and good to go.

The result  was this -

Welcome to the world Lucas Samuel!

 

Bollington weekends

So, it appears that our weekends since the move have been jam-packed! and this weekend was no exception. It is amazing how popular you get once you have a house. I started by busily making some curtains on friday from an unusual material…potato sacks! Bear with me. I had some creative lightbulb moment the week before and I admit it was a somewhat strange idea. I had an existing curtain and then attached twelve potato sacks to the curtain in different orders to creat a draught excluding curtain which looks a little bit retro mixed with country.

Well.. they will be a talking point no doubt! at least I didn’t sew my fingers to the sacks. I did have emergency gardening seeds just in case I needed to reuse the sacks for their original purpose. Always best to be prepared in the event that a disaster strikes.

It was then time to make some cakes for a Ceilidh that we were attending in the evening for my cousins charity Friends of Roshni, which is an extremely worthwhile cause and who do outstanding work in India.

I originally made lovely looking butterfly cakes. Queue a journey in the boot of Luke’s car and they transformed and became more like squashed caterpillar cakes.

Maybe no one noticed? I have made a mental note never to put cakes in the boot when Luke is driving. Ever. However, they were all sold so maybe I got away with it. Although they didn’t look half as good as the array of cakes on display for the rest of the cake sale but that worked in my favour in the end as I managed to procure a massive fruit cake and smiley faced chocolate biscuits. There was even a raffle as well and I sneakily exchanged a bottle of wine with my mum for some soap, I think she felt a bit outdone by.

There was lots of dancing , and being swung around, to fantastic live music much to my sister’s partners amusement who had never hear of a Ceilidh and had no idea it involved dancing. His bemusement waned somewhat as he was dragged onto the dance floor. Some may say the lack of warning was cruel, or possibly funny. He soon found his dancing feet as people of all ages galloped around the room ensuring that they didn’t run over any little ones who had escaped their parents clutches and were running free in between the dancers.

There was then a break from the dancing as, mainly the men, formed a huge pack to see who could roll a pound the closet to a bottle of whisky.

It was all very competitive, but good-natured, as everyone delved into their pockets to find any renegade pound coins and each pound that was rolled went straight to Roshni. The event was a huge success and was very well organised. Everyone was really enjoying themselves as they tried to work out dosey doe and promenade walks. Something, I fear, luke will never master. He became known as the man to avoid copying if you wanted to make it through the dance in one piece!

We then had guests on Saturday and the plan was a walk but this tuned into drinks by the fire, well it was cold and our guests had arrived with an armful of drinks and lovely flowers. Add that to the fruit cake my aunty made, with a cheeky bit of cheese, and it was lovely! This was then followed by a drink sat in a beer garden overlooking a flaming red winter sky with spirals of smoke dotted around from all the chimneys, perfect. It was then a  trip to the local indian restaurant. However, we didn’t make it to our original destination as, when we were walking up a huge (ish) hill to our final destination a passerby enquired if we were going for a curry, we were then informed that the restaurant had been closed for the night. No it wasn’t fully booked with guests but with the border agency, who were conducted a swoop on the premises. Good job we hadn’t gone earlier although I did have images of lots of border agency officers kicking back and having a curry with a bottle of tiger but, somehow, I don’t think that was an accurate picture.

However, the second indian (yes Bollington has two!) still had space so we sat down to a huge amount of food! Luke was warned that a madras might be too spicy however he insisted he was used to very spicy food because of his time in Asia. Half way through his main course and as the beads of sweat dripped down his forehead the inevitable happened, he admitted defeat. Oh dear. I did think this might happen as he has been known to remove pepperoni from pizza when he has found them too hot. Therefore, I managed to get him a surprise  pudding to help. This came in the form of the popular choice for children, a Plunky! I don’t think the waiter could contain his amusement as he brought it to our table and then left giggling to himself. It did seem to do the trick and we even got to keep the penguin. Now all I need is four more and I can use them for dinner parties? or maybe not..

Luke seemed quite content as he ate his ice cream to a chorus of ‘Do you feel lucky, well do you? Go ahead Plunky, make my day’. We them merrily ambled back to the cottage following an array or pretty solar lights.

After securing some fresh croissants after my run we had a lovely breakfast before our guests left. It was then time for Luke to don his pinny and make mother murray proud with his first sunday dinner in our house.

It was scrumptious and there was enough left to make a chicken soup afterwards. You just steam the carcass in veg and remove all bones before blending.

Perfect, this will keep us going for the week. Hopefully! now, what to do next weekend? another Plunky?

 

Why Hello There 2012

What a fantastic, traditional christmas I have had. It began with joining in with Stir-Up Sunday and continued all the way untill the Christmas tree was removed into the garden. Although it seems to have sprouted legs of its own and has ended up on the other side of the garden. Now either my dad is playing a practical joke on me or I did actually choose a magical tree. I am keeping an eye on my dad’s whereabouts, and the trees, and if it pops up in any other random bits of the garden I will know the answer. I am hoping it is the latter.

We all had a fantastic boxing day without a television in sight. Instead, we had a few hours of singing around the piano due to my extremely talented brother. However, it got a bit complicated when he decided to play a musical game where you omitted words from a song or went round the group letting everyone sing one word of a verse. It sounds a lot easier than it actually was as I found out when I accidentally ended up doing an impromptu solo. This got everyone from the other room in as they wondered why I was doing a solo and why I had chosen that particular song. Maybe I should work on my musical taste if everyone thought it was perfectly normal for me to have chosen to sing ‘The grand old duke of york’ for my Christmas solo. Not good.

Then we had a black tie Italian Come Dine With Me extravaganza on New Years Eve where all my siblings and their partners cooked a course each for my parents to judge. It got to be very competitive with people guarding their courses for fear of sabotage and checking the icing sugar had not been replaced by salt. However, no sabotage was undertaken, or a least it was unsuccessful, and it was an incredibly enjoyable night with lots of food (in fact their was so much food I had to change outfits halfway through to enable me to finish dessert!), dancing, alcohol, games and music and finally the amazing firework display in London. Magical. There was also the added bonus of no sore head for the first day of 2012! Although I fear my siblings are a bit bitter as the LuLu’s were presented with the winning certificate for the main course. Even our domestic over the washing up did not hamper our chances. I managed to convince everyone that it was part of our entertainment but honestly, put a man anywhere near any washing up and more often than not they flap so much you end up wishing you had done it yourself! However, the presentation of our dish was all down to Luke so I forgave him. Just about. It may have been different if we had lost…

Then it was goodbye 2011! What a year it has been. I have lived in ‘proper’ America, travelled all over the place and returned back home again. In between this I have learnt to sew, bicycled across LA, seen a lot of amazing things, tried lots of new food and baked my way through the year. I am almost sad to see the end of 2011 but 2012 is already looking promising with a new car, tidy bedroom (for the moment anyway), new job and already lots of weekends booked up with gallivanting across various parts of the UK. I can’t wait, I have even made myself a 2012 buckets list;

• Always drink good coffee, life is too short for just a regular cup of instant.
• Begin volunteering more.
• Always go to charity shops first as the majority of my outfits other people liked over Christmas were brought in charity shops, I had forgotten just how much I enjoy shopping in them and it is a worthwhile shop because it is helping to give money to charity. I already have a bag of 2011 clothes to take to the charity shop as well.
• Read more books instead of watching mindless television. Although I will see how this goes when various series return to the screen.
• Buy a cinema pass so that I will make time to see films and not just wait untill they are out on DVD and then never watch them.
• Explore more parts of the UK with my first stop being Congleton (Yes really, no laughing please!), an overnight train ride to Edinburgh and then onto the capital.
• Go to the hairdressers more so that the poor hairdresser does not have to contend with taming my tangled frizzball every half a year. Every hair cut I start by apologising first and I am hoping to change this.
• Book a trip to Mount Everest Base Camp. I am not one for relaxing holidays and I figure that this is the perfect polar opposite.
• Make time to see friends more, starting with a date with a friend over cheese sandwiches.
• Buy a sewing machine so my thumbs will begin to heal over this new year! It will also mean when I make my parents a quilt they will get it before next year and it will, hopefully, be less painful!
• Make it to Singapore for 2012/2013 NYE.

It is not an adventurous bucket list but I already have a very good feeling about 2012 and no doubt this list will expand rapidly.

 

Home-made Christmas Gifts

So, after the fairies survived the annual family Christmas party that involved lots of head bopping, singing, food, cakes and alcohol!, I managed to get cracking with some other Christmas presents. This included lots of cushions,

hampers

and a DIYgingerbread man making kit.

It was then off to John Lewis a few times to get some last-minute bits for other people to give to members of my family. I really should have been one of Santa’s Elves! Maybe next lifetime? However, I don’t think one of the Elves first point of call would have been the cafe for a much-needed cup of coffee!

I then had to rescue my Christmas cake mainly from myself as I keep going past the reduced ‘Delia Smiths Christmas cake in a box’ and have to resist doing anything drastic! I just go speedily away from them mumbling to myself. Christmas, it makes everyone turn a little bit odd!

However, now I have frosted my cake I am rather pleased with myself. I even embarked on a chocolate truffle making session as well!

All that is left to do is to put it to the taste-test with my family and friends. Fingers crossed and Merry Christmas everyone!

 

Teeth, Biscuits and Throwing A Few Penguin-esque Moves

I am still getting used to being back in the UK. It is odd not having people ‘welcome’ me everywhere I go or telling me to ‘have a nice day’. Maybe I should start wearing a badge requesting this? Although this could, quite possibly, appear a tad bit pompous. Yet, I did get a warm welcome from my local post office owner as I went in to purchase an armful of all sorts of english biccies to fill up my make shift biscuit tin.

Don’t worry, my job search hasn’t led to me nibbling biscuits all day. Although I am having far too much coffee with a splash of the Hazelnut syrup that I brought back from America. No. This assortment of  sugary delights are for my new role as an administrator. My eclectic biscuit tin now contains oaty hobnobs, crunchy digestives, squashed fly biscuits and of course the english classic – rich tea.

I have to say, english biscuits are so much better than American biscuits (Sorry America!). However, it did cause me to spend a good few minutes trying to spoon out the soggy remains of biscuit halves from my cup of coffee after a spot of overenthusiastic dunking.

This biscuity indulgence led me straight through the doors of my local gym. I then spent an hour replicating the penguins I had seen the previous evening on Frozen Plant but a less cute and fluffy version. A happy footed penguin I was not. (please watch). This is because I had signed up for a ‘Tone and Trim’ class which meant trying our legs together with resistance bands before being instructed to do steps, lunges, grapevines, curls and knee lifts. All of this was achieved whilst still having our feet tied together. It would be an understatment to say this was easy but I managed to waddle my way through the class without breaking any bones or the resistance band. It was then a test of my intelligence to regain my freedom from the band. Finally free, I retreated back to my secret sewing missions, surrounded by autumn treats from America.

I even surprised myself after completing a bit of my project with my thumbs still in tact. Maybe I am improving?

An area where I am not improving in is my trips to the dentist so I decided it was about time to have my teeth checked and I have to go back. Therefore, I will be starting my Advent not with the usual chocolates from an Advent calender but some fillings.

Maybe the biscuits weren’t such a good idea.

My day only proceeded to get worse when I arrived home to a parcel. I was very excited as I knew it was the plug that I needed to be able to work my mums new American coffee machine. I brought for her but have a secret wish to covet it as this is the one big thing, apart from Luke, that I have missed from America. Much to my dismay and bewilderment the plug I was sent was an English plug to convert it into an English plug socket. What on earth is the point of this! I am a bit ashamed at how long it took me to work out why the american plug was not fitting into the adapter and then it was time to contact the suppliers and try to solve the problem. Now I shall begin my hunt for a plug once more and I will just have to be content using the kettle for now. I also have another dilemma to solve. Somewhere in my boxed up items is a ticking clock. I do not want to open these boxes until I get my own house so is there a way of stopping the clock without opening them? or will I have to continue to feel like Captain Hook until the batteries run out. I fear my sanity might disappear before that point.

 

Walks, Fireworks and Crafts

Since I have been back I have spent the majority of time in John Lewis for various reasons but mainly catching up with people. I did spend most of my time trying to find my way around as the store has completely changed since I have last been home. However, I was pleased to see that it is confusing other regular shoppers as the same people were looping me while we were both looking for the same section. It turned into a bit of a comical, impromptu treasure hunt to see where the christmas section had been moved too. For once I was pleased that I was not the odd one out because I didn’t know where I was going! I have then spent the rest of the time taking the dog for her walks, which she eagerly prepares for by running around in continuous circles at the front door untill you take her out. These walks also included a jaunt through Wilmslow Park, where Poppy either went perilously close to muddy puddles or ran behind our legs if another dog dared to approach her. I’m afraid ‘guard dog‘ is not a phrase that can be readily applied to this dog. Ferocious she is definitely not. This became even more apparent when fireworks were going off all weekend which led to Poppy hiding underneath people’s legs and eventually underneath one of my jumpers. Even Catherine Wheels made her jump. I’m just glad she hadn’t been in Indy during the 4th July! She would have probably leapt from the balcony!

I have also had a chance to cook a bit and this included making an anniversary meal for my parents who have been together for rather a long time now which is an amazement achievement. I’m not quite sure if Luke will be able to put up with me for over thirty years! or if he does it will be because of some strategically placed ear plugs. However, if we do I may replicate the meal I made (please see my ‘making..’ page). It did turn out much better than I thought. I was a bit experimental with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a dash of cumin here and there but it came together nicely. I think my parents will think they have a live in slave temporarily now! So I have made my room a little untidy just so they know I am not. Although at the moment the only person that it is affecting is me so it appears to be a ‘cut your nose off to spite your face’ dilemma.

I then continued my endless job hunt with endless job websites. I did find a very enticing job of becoming a lead explorer taking a group of children across a desert. There was just one snag with this fantastic job. You needed previous desert experience. Now I don’t think my time making a  few misshapen sandcastle would count and  I wont get any relevant experience in Cheshire unless I go to the local playground. I could try very hard to use my imagination to turn the sand box into a version of  the Sahara Desert. I believe I could achieve this but I suspect my potential employers would not agree that this was sufficient or quite the experience they had in mind.  By the end of one day I needed a break away from the computer and curled up to watch Kirsty Alsop’s new programme about crafts. Coincidently the episode was about sewing cushions and there were some cushion-makers who were doing things I had never thought could be done, like making cushions out of lama hair and strategically placing rabbits onto the cushions. That will have to be my next projects. I was quite contented for an hour sewing my own cushions whilst being inspired by the programme. That was untill I stabbed myself with the needle and had to give in.

I then discovered that one of the joys of being back in the UK is definitely being able to watch some decent tele without the ridiculous adverts every five minutes, usually informing you of a fantastic new medicine before then letting you know it could potentially kill you.  I was able to peacefully watch the English Strictly Come Dancing and Downton Abbey. As well as watching some very cute penguins on the amazing Frozen Planet. They were all so lovely. I especially like the fact that it is the males who make the nests and look over the eggs whilst the females get to go into the sea and find the food. I think we should try to implement this into our society? Although I am not very good at fishing, let alone fishing without a net, and avoiding huge whales which made me want to  shout at the tele to instruct the penguins on how they could escape. It was more tense than Jaws!  Maybe we could modify it to a quick stop off at the shops every so often instead.

Meanwhile Luke remains in Indianapolis and if this wasn’t bad enough he spent the weekend going for runs in Eagle Creek Park, drinks in Broad Ripple, and nipping into Yogulatte! Although I may get my own back and try out the new frozen yogurt place near where I live now. Yet just to rub salt into my small cut after leaving the states Luke has gone and retrieved a new car which just happens to be a Mustang. I’m a tad disappointed, if I have to be honest. My only consolation is that it is white and will need cleaning. All the time. Constantly.

 

I traveled among unknown men (and women! sorry William), In lands beyond the sea: Nor England! Did I know till then What love I bore to thee.

I’m settling back into the English way of life, slowly! It has been great to see some firm favourites again from kettles, Tetley tea,

PG Tips (including Monkey),

to roundabouts!

(Don’t worry. No-one was hurt in the making of this picture as I was not driving at the time)

Of course, it didn’t feel like I was back before I had been to see my grandparents for an eagerly anticipated catch up over a cuppa. I arrived just in time to see my Granddad get his Manchester City top on and was collected by my lovely Godfather. There were quick hugs all around and the boys went off to the match in a huddle of blue and with a flask of tea in tow. This time the flask did contain a teabag as last time apparently this was the one vital ingredient which was omitted. Then it was time for my Nana and I to get down to the really, serious business. Nattering.

I left my Grandparent’s quite a few hours later as both my Nana and myself  can talk for England. It was then time to take my parent’s boisterous puppy out onto the field. It was so refreshing to be in an English field. No matter where you go they always appear greener and I have no idea why. Or whether this is real of psychological.

I made it back, still with the puppy even though it was touch and go when she sped off and disappeared, and decided to introduce here to the peanut butter dog biscuits. Turns out that this is one picky pooch. She will not eat them unless you break them in half for her first.

Honestly! I suppose it is my own fault for encouraging her with peanut butter biscuits. She will be wanting a coat like the other American dogs or, heaven forbid, a set of wings like the ones the dogs were wearing for Halloween. Oh dear.

It was then time to tackle the sparse Trick or Treaters. This included helping a mini witch, a mini spider man and a mini wizard to choose some sweets from the Roses tin much to the amusement of their mothers. I had to go through each flavour untill the mini witch went away with her first choice anyway. I had no problem helping the other older bunch of Trick or Treaters as I ensured they knew they could take more than one sweet each. However, I didn’t mean for them then to grab huge handfuls and leave me with a sorry-looking tin of chocolates. I was just glad no other spooky characters knocked on the door for the rest of the night. Yet the damage had already been done as there was no more of the flavours I liked. Oh well I just had to find a trick then.

This trick turned out to be job hunting. There are so many strange jobs out there that I am not quite sure where to start. I have a  choice of applying for a call centre, a milker (yes, a real cow milker), an administrator or a dog walker? However, it appears you need previous experience or qualifications for all these roles. Unfortunately I just have a Politics degree which doesn’t seem to be helping me out at the moment. Maybe I could launch my own shop? Unfortunately someone has beaten me to setting up a local frozen yoghurt shop. Maybe a dog bakery would be a good idea? Or a sewing shop as I have just started another secret sewing project. Needles at the ready!

 

Time To Say Goodbye. Almost

It is with a slightly weighed down heart that I am beginning to prepare for my last few weeks in Indianapolis. Part of me is incredibly excited to get home and see everyone but I feel like I have just got settled and into a routine here albeit a somewhat ad hoc one. However, I now know I do not have to worry about Luke as he has found himself a hobby. He is trying to collect quarters. Quarters you may ask? but these are not just any quarters. These are the ones that have a different state on the back of them. This means that the first question he asks me when he comes in is if I have any new quarters for him. So, when he gets lonely (if he gets lonely) or misses the nagging he has the vending machines to go and visit. He seems to find endless amusement by changing notes and coins over and over again to see if he can get more of the quarters he needs. He might start to raise people’s suspicions though if he spends too long there. They will think he is trying to steal their contents!

I began to enjoy my last week having assured myself that Luke will be fine and he has the vending machines to have a chat. There was a slight glitch when the fire alarm going off. Whilst I was on the cross-trainer. Luckily it was a false alarm but it was slightly annoying or provided a nice breather, i’m not sure. I was then able to spend a few hours, with no disturbances, packing my suitcases up and I am beginning to realise I have a new dilemma. I seem to have acquired quite a few things since living here. That was not meant to happen! Not to mention my lovely shopping cart?! Unless I can disguise it as a carry-on bag? Or I may hide my sister in it and use her ticket for my cart as they are coming over next week. Surely she won’t mind. I’ll just have to make sure there in no spilt beer in there first and it will be all nice and cosy. All I have to do is sneakily wheel her on.

I was pleased that I manged to get my packing sorted as I was able to tootle along and say farewell to the market. I was excited to go and see what goodies were available and in season. I was all ready and thought I would grab a quick drink before heading out. Error. My flat now smells of soy sauce and it has done for a few hours. I was horrified to watch, in slow motion of course, as a bottle of the dark substance leapt from the fridge door rail and shattered all over the kitchen floor. I have yet to reach the puddle of soy sauce that I know is just floating around underneath the fridge. Yet, that wasn’t enough to deter me from the market it just delayed me. So after a speedy mop-up operation I went along to the market with a slight soy sauce smell clinging to me. Pleasant, maybe I shall produce my own perfume. I don’t think I anyone noticed?

Regardlessly I managed to grab a surprise present for someone from a lovely local farmer lady. I then returned to my smelly flat and lit as many candles as possible. I think I may even have to use a Yankee for this as a last resort. Oh well, I soon forgot about the smell as I indulged by making a fresh pot of coffee. My coffee machine is something I will find very, very hard to part with. Gosh, I am now going to have to actually pour hot water over coffee granules or, heaven forbid, make a cafetière! I then watched The Little Women. I have decided to make today slightly girlie, well as much as I can withstand, as Luke is away for the night. I then got sucked into watching an episode, or it might have been a couple, by accident of the real housewives series. It is far too addictive. I never liked Big Brother but this makes it ridiculously compulsive watching. I decided , after the third of fourth episode, to be a bit more mature and watch something educational. An American made documentary about the commoner who married Prince William, and her rear of the year sister. It is highly amusing how the Americans are portraying it. They adore them and it is very syrupy, slightly sycophantic and somewhat inaccurate.

 

Burlesque, Limos And Bringing The Pumpkins To Life

After a day finishing my secret sewing mission I was invited out for one quick drink with Luke and his colleagues. Well, you know when you are invited out for one quick drink that there is the distinct possibility it will be neither quick or just the one. As it turns out this is exactly what happened. So, quite a few drinks later we were still sat in the beer garden listening to some live music surrounded by a sea of red t-shirts due to a local Lilly fundraising day. Then after we all decided that enough drinks had been finished, especially on a work night, we escaped back home.

I felt very glad I did not have to go out to work on Friday and instead began the long process of beginning to pack all my belongings so I will be ready to leave Indianapolis in a few weeks.  It was a fairly sad process so I cheered myself up by a trip to Yogulatte with Luke and we sat on the wall, swinging our legs and just enjoying the beautiful colours of the autumn leaves.

Then we indulged even more with a cupcake from the Sweet Tooth Bakery. It was deliciously greedy of us.

We were then all set for a night in watching The Mentalist but we were lured away by something far more exciting. There was a food truckfestival below our balcony with an assotment of vans and delicacies.

However, what was more interesting was  when we saw a sign for the Angel Burlesque show so we thought why not? It was something new so we tootled along and got tickets. We then descended into the depths of the Murat Theatre and were led through an entrance coverded in a white drape and were seted at a candel lit table.

It was in a room which reminded me of the cabaret and it began to become full. The show was was a lot more funny than I though it would be. The women were so confident and had come up with some original sets, such as a mime artist and a ‘Where’s Wally?’ performance (or ‘Where’s Waldo’ as the Americans call it).

Now that is something I never quite pictured Wally doing.

After that new experience we decided to add personalities to our pumpkins

before heading to some more familiar territory on Saturday with a trip to the mall to get Luke’s early birthday present. We had to drive through the protests that have spilled over from New York to head to the mall for the present. With that purchased and a few more intended items, we did our customary walk around the food court to nibble on some samples before heading for a huge dinner at the Three Sisters Cafe. We sat out on the porch and enjoyed some huge sandwiches and various potatoes. I was then very glad that we had such a big dinner as we decided to go for some drinks with the other grads. This once again led to many more drinks and we ended up in The Wild Beaver with far too many shots

It was here that we met a group of Americansand were randomly invited to join them on their night out. This meant getting a limo, yes a real limo with alcohol supplied and everything, to another bar around the corner.

Yes this felt very lazy to me but we got to be lazy in style! The girls were lovely and it was a really enjoyable night out, although we found it difficult to explain why we didn’t get limos on our nights out in the UK. We explained that we walked or got taxis but they wondered if this was because we were poor? I couldn’t imagine having a limo on hire to take us to various bars every time we went out. Maybe I should try this next time I have a night out in the UK?

Unfortunately, I realised just how much we had drunk the next day and we spent all day on the sofa. Well I did. I sort of sent Luke out on errands for me which included picking up a huge Subway. Not just any Subway but a footlong. My hangover required it and it was just the cure for any hangover.

I then formerly added our two new members to the LuLu’s by lsetting them on fire. Don’t worry, this isn’t how I treat all newcomers. It was only the pumpkins!

 

Let The Dinners Comence

Having acquired my pumpkin, but I am yet to decide on its personality, I launched myself in to my next project. Bring on the sewing! I must be a glutton for punishment but here I am again surrounded by little squares and armed with a needle and thread. However, my thumbs did take some respite when I made some Rye bread. Yet, in the end, I wished I hadn’t bothered as an hour later I produced a rock hard, dense loaf that had nowhere to go but the bin. Oh dear , I felt a little bit embarrassed about my cooking debacle as it made a horrendous thudding down the rubbish shoot. Luckily, the bad cooking streak didn’t last as I ‘cooked’ off a week of fantastic dinners, and even better company, with a pizza night in my flat.

It was lovely to have everyone over as I haven’t seen them all since  before I went away! There had been a few questions directed at Luke as to what he had done with me so it was also my chance to prove I was still very much alive. So, after procuring some chairs and plates from another flat we all created our pizzas with various toppings and sat down to enjoy them. Well, all except one but I made sure I saved some cheesecake for him as the others actually liked it! Surprising after I informed them what was in it but it was actually rather good. Unlike the Rye bread but that debacle doesn’t need to be mentioned again. There was then an odd procession of people carrying various items such as chairs, pizzas and drinks across the hallways and down the lifts as we said  a prolonged goodbye and looked forward to ‘Indian Night’ at another friends, or what he affectionately referred to as ‘Gandhi’s revenge’, which worried and puzzled me somewhat.

All was revealed when we entered his flat the next night and were created by a lovely fragrant smell from the kitchen and caught a glimpse of huge pans of rice and sauce. We waited eagerly to try the drumsticks, biryani and then a deliciously sweet pudding called kheer. Before we got to eat we heard about my other friends dilemma with a ladybird invasion in her flat over a bowl of bombay mix.

With all of us clueless as to how to deal with ladybirds we still hadn’t found a solution so we tucked into a delicious feast that had obviously taken a lot of effort to make, which was greatly appreciated The chicken was very tasty and not dry,

the biryani was the perfect level of hotness

and I have yet to get my taste budsaround the pudding.

Is it more like porridge, pasta, muesli or warm cinnamon milk? who knows but luckily I went away with a box of it so I can keep trying to make up my mind. It’ll be a hard task but I am sure I will get through it.

It was then a day of removing the last straws of hay in my bag after our trip to the pumpkin patch and then beginning to sew on my balcony again. Isn’t it funny how things seem to come around in a full circle as I spent most of my first weeks sat on the balcony sewing. This time it was a little cooler but still very pleasant. I’m not so sure I can say the same about the sewing as I managed to get the needle stuck in various thumbs and fingers repeatedly. This hurt. A lot. Finally I was rescued, eventually, by the prospect of another lovely dinner tonight and another friends. She was cooking lasagna and apple pieso I couldn’t wait. I made a quick garlic flatbread roulade thing to take with me and we began a familiar process of transferring chairs, plates and cups across to the other flat.

We got to admire a beautiful Indianasky.

Then we were joined by a newbie who was fresh from the plane and tucked into a gorgeous vegetable lasagna, which was delicious especially as she had never made it before.

Then the apple pie was perfect, it even had a crumble topping!

Afterwards we all departed in dribs and drabs with an assortment of items and I managed to walk out of the flat with some hazelnut syrup for my morning’s coffee. Fabulous! It may just help spur me on to finish my sewing. Maybe. So we have had a perfect set of dinners and great company yet along the way I have managed to loose a part of one of my teeth. I now have everything crossed that I do not develop toothache before I get back to the UK! Oh well, the meals were definitely worth it.