Lie Back and Think of England

News flash: belly dominates northern hemisphere

2009-02-20T14:10:00.001Z

The last couple of months I've had an amazing number of people tell me how big I am and express surprise that I wasn't due to pop within minutes. I'm not really particularly offended, but it does surprise me that people seem to think that kind of comment is ok just because I'm pregnant. And they're not necessarily all that careful with their words, either - a certain redhead might have learnt recently that 'big' and 'fat' are not at all the same thing, are not to be used interchangeably, and are not both terms one can safely use when describing one's hormonal wife.
The midwives and obstretrician, meanwhile, tell me I'm exactly the right size and everything is on track for a healthy baby and 'smooth' birth, whatever that means.

We went to our first antenatal class last night. (I noticed that all bar one of the women there were my size or larger.) The class was great - the other couples seemed lovely, and it was all very friendly. I'm really looking forward to next week's class, not least because the guys will be taught how to massage us!

Radio silence

2008-12-22T16:11:00.004Z

Bloody hell! That was almost four months. I have some reasonable excuses if any of you would like to hear them.

The last four months have held

...a bit of travel. I spent a few days in Rome, which was absolutely wonderful for all the usual reasons - beautiful city, lots of fun and fabulous food. The highlight for me was hiring golf buggies and driving around on a self-guided tour of Rome. It was so much fun! A close second was dinner at an old palace above the Spanish Steps where there were amazing views across Rome. Three days definitely wasn't enough and I'd love to go back there with Vaughn.

...a lot of throwing up, a couple of scans and more expansion than seems reasonable. Pregnancy is an interesting experience! I've started going to aquanatal classes and every couple of weeks the lovely man at the gym sets a new routine for me (and seems to have decided he's now my personal trainer, following me around every time I go the the gym). Our antenatal classes start in February, so brace yourself for some very boring posts as I inundate you with all kinds of uninteresting things about pregnancy and child birth! And to start the ball rolling, Vaughn and I have been watching with fascination as my belly button has gone from being an innie to a flatty and is now threatening to go over to the Other Side and become an outie. I'm worried every time I sneeze that it will be the final straw and I'll start walking around navel first.

...and of course a bit of planning for Christmas. We're heading to Interlaken on Christmas Eve for a week or so of fun and snow. I'm hoping to go sledding and hiking if not skiing. It'll be my first white Christmas. I'm so excited! Just think of all that gluehwein and chocolate and laeckerle and....

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!

2008-09-25T17:09:00.003+01:00

From little things

2008-09-05T15:22:00.002+01:00

One of the tools I try to promote at work is narration. A good story, well told is a very powerful thing. It sticks with the audience long after it's told and is often passed on. Narration has a very strong history, long before people started writing.

The story that sticks most with me is the one told in Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody's song "From little things, big things grow", which was brought again into the public light earlier this year when a bunch of Australian musicians released a new version of it, to tie in with Mr Rudd's Apology to Aboriginal Australians. I watched it on youTube at the time, bawling my eyes out on the couch in our London flat, and in fact get teary everytime I think of it. For those of you who don't know it, it's a ballad telling the story of Vincent Lingiari and the Gurindji strike in the 1960s, which started off as a dispute over wages and conditions and turned into the first of the great land rights battles in Australia. In 1975 part of the land was handed back to the Gurindji people in a deal brokered by the Whitlam government. In the ceremony Mr Whitlam poured a handful of sand into Vincent Lingiari's hands.

Fume-induced grumpiness

2008-08-28T15:40:00.002+01:00

Our house stinks of paint. The smelll is everywhere in the house and we can't seem to get rid of it. You'd think that might help incentivise me to burn the midnight oil and get the job done as quickly as possible, but it hasn't. I'm rapidly losing patience with living in our bombshell of a living room and am on the hunt for a reasonably priced tradie to do the floors for us. I just want it finished! I want to be able to wake up in the own room with the windows open. I want to be able to walk from the kitchen to the dining room (really, two ends of the same room) without having to overcome an obstacle course. I want to be able to cook a nice meal and have somewhere to sit down and eat it.

2008-08-07T17:07:00.000+01:00

We've been in our very own home now for almost two months. It's gone so quickly! We're still working out how some of the rooms should work - the living and dining rooms aren't really working very well at the moment - but we feel we've made good progress on the bedrooms. Ours is now furnished, and the built in bookshelves in the spare room are now out. This weekend we'll be washing the walls and ceilings, caulking gaps here and there and ripping up carpet and underlay in preparation for polishing the floors and painting the rooms. Very soon now we'll have pleasant and fairly neutral rooms in place of the violence-and-nausea-inducing Barbie-meets-Mortisha-Adams pink and black wallpaper.

In other exciting news, we've been eating our own lettuces for the last week, all the new strawberry plants are starting to produce fruit, the beans, peas and courgette are all starting to flower, and the tomato plants are struggling under the weight of the fruit. I've ordered some heirloom tomato plants, too, (the others being common all garden red varieties) which should arrive soon. I'm really looking forward to eating them! I admire a tomato that determinedly sticks to be pink and fabulous in the (red) face of peer pressure.

The rest of the garden is starting to take shape, too. We spent much of the first few weeks clearing the garden, and the last couple planting some of the non-vegie beds. We're going properly English, with lots of lavendar, roses, honeysuckle, hydrangeas, bulbs and jasmine. In a couple of weeks when they are available I'll be planting ludicrous numbers of bluebell, snowdrop and wild garlic bulbs to cover the area under the very large tree in the back corner. Hopefully with all these flowers, we'll be able to find some friends for the solitary robin who's been eating the seed from our bird feeder.

In completely unrelated news, we've booked flights to Australia for a trip in Oct-Nov. We'll be in Canberra for a few days leading up to 25 Oct, Melbourne very briefly around 26-27 Oct, Adelaide for the weekend of 1 Nov, and south east Queensland after that until 18 Nov. We'd love to see you!

Go the Maroons

2008-07-02T17:41:00.000+01:00

Phew!

2008-06-24T14:11:00.003+01:00

Last week was a bit crazy for me. We moved house; I started supplying cupcakes to my local cafe; and I had an important deadline at work. Amazingly, all three turned out very well. The move was quick and painless, and much helped by the lovely Bear and Pirate, who drugged themselves to the eyeballs and endured dust and cats for the day. A week later we were in, unpacked and celebrating with a housewarming party.

The cupcakes were a great hit. They sold out within the day and I've arranged to supply the cafe with a batch twice a week. In the meantime they will use other caterers for cakes. I'm thrilled because it means I can continue to bake for them but at a manageable level. I'm loving all the piping work and playing around with all things sugar craft.

And the work thing went well too. I've been doing some knowledge management consultancy work with a client we're trying to develop our relationship with. Last week I presented my findings and recommendations, which they loved. They've asked me to present to their global legal board next week, so my Partner is feeling pretty pleased with me right about now, which is always nice.

All in all it's been a big week!

A new era

2008-06-12T10:39:00.002+01:00

Ridiculous amounts of money were flying around this morning, and we're now the proud owners of a house! We pick up the keys tonight and move in over the weekend. If you're in London on the 22nd we're having a housewarming - come join us!

Exciting times

2008-06-09T15:25:00.001+01:00

On Valentine's Day an old train carriage was deposited just off Deptford High Street in the old railyard area. Since then it's had several personas in the form of commissioned graffiti and a lot of work done inside an out to turn it into a new cafe.

It's the 'first step' in a regeneration project for that area which is to include the rebuilding of our station (the first suburban railway station in London, built in 1836 and not vastly different today), the building of some pretty swanky housing and the redevelopment of the old railyard area into a creative industries market, where I plan on opening a cake stall.

I've been watching the developments with great interest as I walk to and from the station each day, and am quite excited about dropping in for a coffee on the way home. I'm particularly excited about the prospect of a local cafe open on a Sunday. Our beloved Bear Cafe becomes a Church on Sundays and isn't open to us heathen caffeine addicts.

Sigh

2008-06-04T16:50:00.000+01:00

And then it was done, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Buying a house is frustrating

2008-06-03T11:56:00.001+01:00

You find a house, you make an offer. They accept the offer, everyone's happy. The housing market starts falling down all around you and you have to revise your offer because house values are dropping (and so, therefore, is the amount you can borrow). They accept the offer. Everyone's happy. Those further up the chain don't accept the offer. Everyone's not happy. A further revised offer and you're back on track. You organise the mortgage, you mark up the shonky contracts. You send them and a huge amount of money to your solicitors all ready to exchange. You exchange. No, wait a minute, you didn't exchange. You just thought you did. Mainly because of the letter from your solicitor telling you you had. You chase the solicitor. You chase the vendor. You hope they are both chasing those further up the chain. You start getting antsy because you've given notice to move out of your apartment, and have planned a housewarming. You start to get grumpy about the interest you could be earning if the deposit were still in your account. You feel frustrated.

Food, glorious food

2008-04-15T17:03:00.002+01:00

Whenever I get a new cookbook (you'll be amazed to hear that's temporarily a thing of the past since we're in Super Saving Mode), I aim to try, if not all, at least a couple of handfuls of recipes from it. Usually, I fail miserably and stick to the two or three that really catch my eye. But I'm pleased to say I've been happily trying recipe after recipe after recipe in The Perfect Scoop, all of them wonderful. I'm hard pressed, even, to say which one I like best. I adore the honey and lavender ice cream, the vanilla is beautiful, the dark chocolate sorbet divine, the fresh fruit ice creams delicious, and the blood orange sorbet was a staple for the few weeks they were in season and available at the Borough Markets. Most recently, though, I've been using the chocolate ice cream recipe, using whatever chocolate I happened to have around. I made a choc orange ice cream last night, using Valrhona cocoa, Terry's chocolate orange and a few drops of orange oil. I'm pretty sure my father-in-law went back for thirds. I'm now longing to try David's salted butter caramel ice cream. I think it will follow nicely from one of my favourite meals:

Pan-fried Scallops with Sweet Potato Mash
Roast, mash and plate a small sweet potato, adding butter and S&P to taste.
Slice 4-6 scallops in half so the discs are less thick. With a small amount of butter in the pan, fry for about 30 seconds each, until just cooked. Place next to the mash and top with a sprinkling of vanilla salt. Serve with a small side salad.

Baby steps

2008-04-08T12:52:00.001+01:00

Many of you with know I've been toying with the idea of starting a catering company. Mainly this involved me thinking about it for a bit and mentioning it to friends and colleagues, hoping peer encouragement would push me over the line from thinking to doing. I'm not quite there yet, but I think it's fair to say I'm at least pretty close to the line. This week I approached a business to offer my catering services. Cross your collective fingers for me!

I'm dreaming of a new kitchen

2008-04-02T13:04:00.001+01:00

Just like the one... well, no, probably not just like one we have just now. I'm dreaming of porcelein sinks, dishwashers, painted wooden doors and plenty of storage space; a fridge-sized fridge (as opposed to the book-sized fridge we have now), wooden floor boards, cupboards I can reach and hidden bins. The garden is also distracting me from work. I have sketches of garden plans left, right and centre, and the beginnings of a planting calendar. There's a nice north wall just asking for climing roses and honeysuckle, and I've picked out and planned, if not dug, the vege patch and herb garden.

Now all we need is for the sale to go through. This waiting around is going to drive me crazy!

Eep!

2008-03-27T16:47:00.000Z

We didn't go away this Easter, having a) been too slack to organise anything, b) looked forward to spending some time relaxing at home and c) felt guilty about going away for a few days and leaving the cats behind (we're going to have to get over that). So, having a few days with no plans, we decided on Saturday to start looking at properties. We've been *talking* about buying a place for ages, but hadn't got any further than looking at places online and talking to the bank about loans, and even that only very vaguely. We called half a dozen or so agencies to arrange to view their properties, and went to see one of them that very afternoon. We loved it. We put in an offer. The owner accepted it. Eep!

Apart from being slightly manic trying to juggle a heavy week at work and trying to organise a mortage, a solicitor and all the other tedious things needed, we're really, really excited! It's a house! With a garden! And while there are certainly things we'd like to change (Vaughn will try to tell you otherwise, but secretly he loves the bright pink wallpaper in the main bedroom), it's entirely livable as is.

Turning two!

2008-03-19T09:36:00.002Z

Two years ago I was drinking champagne with two of my bestest friends, my mum, my soon-to-be mother-in-law and my hairdresser. Vaughn was just getting up and preparing to pace nervously for a few hours. In a few hours we'd be arriving at the Carillon to exchange vows, and the rest, as they say, is history.

We're having trouble with the idea that it's been two years. Somehow it just doesn't make sense to us. It feels much more like forever - in a good way! Anyway, it's been a great couple of years and we're celebrating with a day off work, a lovely lunch at one of my favourite places, and a party tomorrow night with friends.

Feeling exposed

2008-02-14T10:20:00.002Z

We're in the second straight week here in London Town of sunshiny days. I have taken the unprecedented step of removing the umbrella from my handbag.

Valentine's day

2008-02-12T09:45:00.000Z

We've never really subscribed to Valentine's day celebrations. I don't know what changed my mind on that, but I think the idea that we might do something this year cemented around about the time a couple of engineering friends asked if we wanted to have a quick beer after work on Thursday.

So, the menu:

Entree Steamed asparagus with poached egg, truffle oil and shaved parmesan
Main Roasted sweet potato, garlic and goat's cheese individual pies

Rocket, walnut and apple salad
Dessert Cointreau souffle with raspberry sauce

Raspberry sorbet

Friday I'll be going to the gym!

Introducing...

2008-02-10T19:03:00.000Z

the newest Melanos, Max and Sophie. We also have a couple of guests, Pidge and Midge.

Max and Sophie

Pidge and Midge

Mmmmm

2008-01-21T11:40:00.001Z

Last night our neighbours introduced us to the delights of rachlette. Who would have thought cheese, potatoes and pickles would taste so good? These happy discoveries are doing nothing for my vague intentions of having a lower fat diet.

Oh, the happiness!

2008-01-04T10:35:00.000Z

Only a month after I ordered it (5-10 days delivery time, my foot!) I'm the happy recipient of a bag of cocoa. Lovely, lovely cocoa.

This being our first weekend to ourselves in several weeks, we've declared it Hibernation Weekend. We're not going anywhere or seeing anyone. It's going to be great. I'll do the grocery shopping on the way home tonight and cook my little heart out tomorrow, when it's supposed to be beautifully grey and rainy. Perfect weather for baking. And making gelato. And finishing the jigsaw puzzle that's been rendering our coffee table unuseable for the last month.

Wishin' and hopin'

2007-11-29T11:15:00.000Z

This weekend we have one of those rare things, a completely free day. Of course there are the usual housey things that need doing, but I'm hoping we can, if we close our eyes hard enough and take a deep breath, put them off until Sunday. If we actually have a sunny day on Saturday as the weather man seems to be promising, I think the occasion might call for An Outing. Or a sleep in and leisurely brunch. Either way I'm looking forward to it.

Sunrise on the way to work

2007-11-14T13:48:00.000Z

Coming back after three weeks of blissful holidays, London was quite a bit cooler than when we left. And darker. We now see the sunrise on our way to work, and leave work in the pitch black. It's about this time of year when my urge to ride to work dimishes somewhat - usually about two minutes into my ride when my fingers, ears and nose are freezing, my nose is running and I'm trying to avoide the 17 cars in the bike lane.

On the up side, two of my favourite people are coming to dinner this weekend armed with lovely stories of parks and prosposals and sparklies. Congratulations to the Bear and the Pirate, the loveliest of people!

Photos

2007-09-26T11:49:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note to say I've posted some photos from my York trip last month on our Flickr site. West England and Germany photos will hopefully follow shortly.

A delightful weekend

2007-09-24T12:20:00.000+01:00

Our greatly expanded household braved the M25 on Saturday and ventured down to Hastings and Brighton to see the sights and, more particularly the seafood and wine festival. Despite Vaughn's amazing ability to hear 'turn right' regardless of the instruction, we made it down to Hastings in time for morning tea, or morning scallop in my case and explored the festival, sampling heavily along the way before working it off on the trek up the hill to Hastings Castle. Not surprisingly, given its location (Battle of Hastings, 1066 and all that), it was the first Norman castle in England, though much of it has been lost to the sea and a particular king (no prizes for guessing who) who ordered the wanton destruction of Churches around the country. Still, it was a lovely site and the view was spectacular.

We then ventured over the Brighton via Eastbourne and the South Downs Way, which was as lovely as I'd hoped and sufficiently hilly to make me a little glad I got the flu when I was supposed to ride it. We enjoyed our second trip to Brighton just as much as we enjoyed the first almost a year ago, walking around the town and along the pebbly beach. Everything and everyone seemed so much more relaxed than in London and I find the feeling of the place not dissimilar to some areas of Australia - Brighton has rather a hippy reputation. We arrived home exhausted but really pleased to have gone.

And as if that weren't enough to make my weekend Vaughn and I went to lunch yesterday at the Petersham Nurseries in south west London. It was our first time driving through London (as opposed to heading straight out of London which is very easy from our place). Suffice it to say the drive was not the highlight of the day. The 14 mile drive took very close to 2 hours - drive five metres, stop; drive five metres, stop. But it was all worthwhile when we finally arrived. The setting was absolutely beautiful - lots of mismatching wooden tables and chairs with plants all around, attentive staff, wonderful food and wine and a very pleasant atmosphere. Having sneaked a look at the dessert menu, I opted to go straight for mains so I'd have room for pud. The whole menu looked fantastic, but it was an easy choice for me. I simply had to order the roast pigeon. It came out succulent and rich with lovely crispy skin and lots of herbs. I almost cried it was so good. Vaughn's meal was also excellent - a chicory gratin, slightly tangy with a great consistency. Not suprisingly I preferred the pigeon, but it was a lovely change to have interesting vego choices on the menu and not just the usual mushroom risotto or pasta. For dessert we shared a hazlenut ice cream with roasted figs and a sheeps milk ricotta with honey and walnuts. They were both superb - the ricotta creamy and smooth and the ice cream fresh and full of nuts. I was also pleased to note the consistency was very similar to the ice cream I've been making recently.

Walking through the adjacent meadow afterwards by the river, we chatted with a local farmer, who had hitchhiked around Australia in his youth. It was a lovely end to a perfect weekend.

Awake and Sing!

2007-09-20T11:13:00.000+01:00

Continuing our theme of seeing theatre involving West Wing actors, we saw Clifford Odet's 'Awake and Sing!' last night at the Almeida Theatre in Islington, which was excellent. Set in the 1930s in the Bronx the play caputures the hopes and struggles of an impoverished and passionate extended Jewish family. The matriarch (Stockard Channing), was particularly captivating as she waged war against the threats against her family as she saw them. It was a wonderful play and I highly recommend seeing it.

It was also nice to spend some time back in Islington and eat at our favourite kebab place.

Avast and ahoy!

2007-09-19T12:40:00.000+01:00

It's international talk like a pirate day, me mateys. That's all I've got. The rest is in landlubbers' English. Hee hee.

Yes, I've been very slack with posting. I've got an impressive list of excuses if anyone would care to see them, but mainly I've just been slack.

Exciting and fun things in the last month have included: a trip to the Rhine Valley for a wedding, eating strawberries from our garden, my birthday and birthday party. I think I've been excited about all of these things in roughly equal measure.

We had a wonderful 5 days wandering around the Rhine Valley with good friends, new and old, drinking Riesling and new wine and eating fried potatoes, sausages and sauerkraut. Vaughn's self-inflicted culinary misery continued while the rest of us were in raptures. Alice and Michael's wedding, the reason for our trip, was absolutely beautiful - set in a ruined castle with ivy on the walls and vineyards all around, it was just stunning. As was the bride, who looked like a 1940s film star and was just as cool and collected. I'm sure enough of you remember me turning into Bridezilla for a few days before our wedding (days, I tell you - no arguments!). Well, Alice couldn't have been more different. Not only did she have around a dozen people drifting in and out of her room while she was getting ready, which I consider incredibly noble in itself, she and Michael also encouraged everyone at the wedding to stay around for the next few days - with Michael's parents', who are angelic to say the least - before they headed off on their honeymoon. And stay we did. We drove through little towns which looked just like those in train models, took a cruise on the Rhine and went to the Bakfischfest in a neighbouring town. We also spent countless hours soaking up and ambiance of Marianna and Manfred's home, which we've decided is the perfect grandparents' house and Alice and Michael should get onto populating it with grandchildren.

Back in England, we came home to our first ripe strawberries, which we ate straight from the garden while they were still warm from the sun. They were just delicious. I think we've now finished the first crop and I'm hoping the warm weather comes back so we get a second crop. Also because if the only memory of Summer I've got to get me through Winter is two short weeks of sunshine and 20+ temperatures, I'm gonna cry.

We also had a lovely birthday last weekend, which filled our tiny apartment just about to capacity and diminished our wine supplies, including, I was slightly mortified to notice the next day, my cooking wine - an all in collection of any left over white wine from the last few months. It must have been absolutely awful. Mortification or no, I still chuckle to think about it. I wonder who it was?

I love entertaining and enjoy the preparation at least as much as the party itself. Having slightly under catered last time, foolishly giving up control of these things and suggesting people bring a plate, I cooked enough food this time to fill everyone for the rest of the weekend. I also tried out a new ice cream on our unsuspecting guests - lavender and honey - which seemed to meet with approval and I think will now be a regular on our table. And the food extravaganza continues this weekend with a trip to Hastings' seafood and wine festival, and a belated birthday lunch at the Petersham Nurseries, which I've wanted to go to for ages.

At some stage I will endeavour to put up some photos from my York, West England and Germany trips. But probably not this week when we have 3 house guests. In the meantime if you're curious, Vaughn has posted several on Facebook.

The Chaser

2007-09-12T14:21:00.000+01:00

Mostly I find The Chaser intensely irritating. Seeing them live was one of the worst pieces of theatre I have ever seen, quite apart from the fact that I had to cancel some non-refundable flights to see it because apparently it would have been too rude not to use the tickets we were given. But I digress.

This week, I'd happily nominate those irritating gits for just about any humour award under the sun. Absolutely hilarious! Reading the newspaper articles, both Australian and British, and watching the youtube videos of the various escapades I had tears rolling down my cheeks from laughing so hard. From the insecurity passes to the cut out car to the Osama bin Laden outfit, it was absolutely brilliant, and served to highlight our esteemed leader's noticeable focus on anything but Asia (hello - APEC!) and usual brown-nosing with Mr Bush, who, to his credit, actually did manage to mention Asia, albeit as a token gesture at the end of his speech. Oh dear, I'd better stop here before I get carried away on this soapbox of mine. Bring on the election!

Count down

2007-09-03T17:06:00.000+01:00

The calendar barely grazes August usually when I start getting excited about my birthday, but now that it's September and the month of my day is upon us, I'm just about beside myself. I'm on draft three of the birthday menu already and there'll almost certainly be at least another two. Really, I'm not sure it's possible to have A SINGULAR favourite cake. I have LOTS of favourite cakes. And that's before (of course) I even consider entrees and mains. No wonder I love degustation menus. I just don't have the patience to cook them myself.

I'm also looking forward to cooking for my birthday party - please let me know if you're coming and what your favourite food is! I'm going to spend some quality time with my favourite cookbooks this weekend and put together my shopping list.

I love birthdays!

On the move

2007-08-06T17:24:00.000+01:00

Four weeks into this enforced holiday of mine, and I could definitely get used to it! I had a lovely time in York last week and am off to Cornwall tomorrow for another week, this time joined by the lovely red head, who is now also on an enforced holiday. We're packing the tent and hitting the road - hooray! Photos to come on our return.

Cherry jam

2007-07-20T17:08:00.000+01:00

It's cherry season here in the UK - suddenly they're everywhere and really cheap. So, jam.

You're going to need a cherry pitter, a couple of lemons and a whole lot of sugar. You're also going to need some cherries. You want the cherries to be a little less ripe than you'd usually eat them. If you can get sour cherries, so much the better.Think about how many cherries you can handle pitting, then buy less than that. Believe me, your ideas will change on about your third punnet. You get about a jar to a lb, so if you really want a lot of jam try to convince a friend to help.

Before you start the jam, sterilise the jars by washing them in soapy water, rinsing them well and baking them in a cool oven (130 C) for 15-20 mins. Then go and find that shirt of your husband's/boyfriend's that you've never liked, or failing that, something black. You can wash your table down afterwards, but your top is likely to get stained. You may also like to put on some encouraging music - in a few minutes time you're going to have cherry juice all over you, so do it now.

Rinse, destem and pit the cherries. Convince yourself you've always wanted a red table and enjoy the stain starting to appear on your shirt. Chop about 3/4 of the cherries so they don't fall off your toast. Zest and juice the lemons. The juice contains pectin as well as acidity and will help to set the jam. The juice will also help to bleach your now pink hands.

In a heavy stockpot over a medium heat, cook the cherries until all the fruit is soft, stirring regularly with a spatula, scraping the bottom of the pan as you do so. Measure the amount of cherry mixture you have, then add about 3/4 of that amount of sugar. E.g. if you have 2 litres of mixture (including liquid), add about 1.5 litres of sugar. Turn up the heat and stir often. Place a saucer in the freezer.

After a while the bubbles will begin to subside and the mixture will become thicker. When it's ready it will coat the spatula, gel-like. Take it off the heat and put a small amount of jam on the frozen saucer. Return it to the freezer for a few minutes. If it wrinkles when you nudge it, it's done. If not, return the mixture to the heat and boil it for another few minutes then test again in the same way.

When it's done, ladle the mixture into the sterilised jars and leave to cool at room temperature.

Margie is...

2007-07-17T15:18:00.000+01:00

...relieved she still has four uncles (three by birth, one by civil ceremony)
...hoping that bad things don't come in threes, since two Brenans have had bad health luck this year

...addicted to Facebook

Day # 1

2007-07-10T20:00:00.000+01:00

In a less than fortuitous start to my new career as a trophy wife, the washing machine broke this morning. I assume our rental agency will treat this with their usual professionalism and urgency and I look forward to being able to use the washing machine again in December.

On a more cheerful note, I made some almond creme brulees and a rather nice salad for dinner:

200g quinoa cooked in chicken stock (or fake chicken stock as the case may be)
2/3 capsicum, diced
handful of feta, crumbled
small handful of chopped mint and flat-leaf parsley

An interesting week

2007-07-08T20:07:00.000+01:00

Owing to an unexpected Visa crisis, tomorrow is my last day at work. On Tuesday I take up a new role - Trophy Wife. I hope it's a temporary measure. In the meantime I plan on wearing pearls everyday and working on my canapés, as well as visiting some of the art galleries and museums I haven't been to, and making the most of the elusive English summer.

In less shattering news, we saw a wonderful production of Sweeney Todd yesterday, with Bryn Terfel merrily butchering the London populace.

As promised...

2007-07-08T19:13:00.000+01:00

Photos of Cambridge. One here for good measure, the rest on our Flickr site. We've also finally posted some photos from our trip to Madrid a couple of months ago.

Defying the odds

2007-07-02T11:19:00.000+01:00

The midlands are flooding, there's been almost constant rain for a fortnight, and Vaughn and I manage to get sunburnt in England. Vaughn, particularly, is a quite spectactular shade of pink. In between the freckles.

Nonetheless, we had a lovely day trip to Cambridge yesterday. We were serenaded by a barbershop group while we punted on the Cam, swooned to the glorious sounds of the Kings College choir singing evensong, wandered through some delightful markets where there was a very charismatic Jamaican selling splendid homemade cakes, and found a cafe making wonderful smoothies (very hard to get in London). All in all an excellent day.

Photos of bridges and small boys in top hats to follow.

Blessed drugs

2007-06-25T15:08:00.000+01:00

Five days off work with a cough is ridiculous. This cough is ridiculous. The entire block of flats can hear it. But the drugs are starting to work. I've actually slept the last two nights, and life is improving.

Vaughn, on the other hand, is now into week four and rapidly catching up in the coughing stakes, having lagged behind until now with mere sniffles. I'm a sharing, caring kind of gal.

cough

2007-06-15T14:05:00.000+01:00

Or I could get the flu. That's just as fun, right? Cough.

Happiness is a delivery from Amazon

2007-06-14T15:13:00.000+01:00

Two cookbooks and a guide to country walks around London.

And speaking of country around London, this weekend I am cycling the South Downs Way. It runs from Winchester in the South West to Eastbourne in the South (East of Brighton). 100 miles of hills. Obviously I'm dead scared and wondering what on earth induced me to say yes when a bunch of people from work (all much fitter than I) proposed the idea. But I'm looking forward to getting out of London and seeing a bit more of the beautiful countryside not too far from here.

Oh, and you're all invited to my funeral next week. Did I mention it's 100 miles of hills? What kind of idiot does that to themselves? I'm going to die.

Friday's where it's at

2007-06-08T09:45:00.000+01:00

Matty B had it right. Friday's where it's at. The whole weekend is in front of me; everything is possible - and a delightful weekend it's looking to be, too. A bbq tonight with everyone from our apartment block, a party tomorrow and one of my favourite people staying for the weekend, who is not only fabulous but is going to help me cook for the aforementioned party. Lovely girl.

More good news

2007-06-06T11:24:00.000+01:00

After two decades on Channel Nine's Today, Alan Jones is being given the boot on June 15. Private Equity isn't all bad! I don't suppose CVC wants to buy 2GB too?

Doing the Right Thing

2007-06-05T15:10:00.000+01:00

I don't often get terribly political on this soap box of (ahem) ours. And generally when I do it's to have a whinge. Not this time. This time I'm reporting some very good news, albeit a few days late. Reed Elsevier, the parent company of LexisNexis, one of the largest legal publishers, has been involved in arms fairs for a number of years, to the increasing chagrin of its customer base. It has finally withdrawn. About bloody time.

It's that cheerful time of the week

2007-06-01T16:35:00.000+01:00

Friday. With cakes in the afternoon and Phillips Adams to entertain me, what's not to love about Fridays?

The joy of a good coffee

2007-05-24T09:27:00.000+01:00

There's a heavily subsidised Starbucks at work where I buy a coffee most mornings. At best the coffee is pretty bad and sometimes it's terrible, even by English standards. This morning, though, I got a coffee on the way to work. It was smooth. It was creamy. It was sweet without the awfulness that is sugar in coffee. Oh, the bliss!

As if there were any doubt

2007-05-23T14:04:00.000+01:00

25:18. We rock.

One, two, three, stop

2007-05-21T10:54:00.000+01:00

One of our New Year's resolutions this year was to learn Samba dancing. We went along to two lessons and I shook my booty so hard I put my back out (nice work, me). Several months and rather a lot of osteopathy later, we've started Salsa lessons. Not only have I not (yet) put my back out, it actually feels a lot like dancing, unlike the couple of Samba classes we went to, which were much closer to line dancing (which, as everyone knows, is not real dancing). The music was good, the people were lovely, the teachers were funny. We'll definitely be going back.

Long weekend

2007-05-04T11:16:00.001+01:00

This week has felt very long. We've been wandering, dazedly, grief-stricken through the week, devastated by the granny-shaped hole in our universe, and sad not to be with our family. This will be a weekend of therapeutic sleeping, tea drinking, cooking and general relaxation. The three days are much needed.

Recent favourites

2007-04-29T12:54:00.000+01:00

For those of you who like cooking as much as I do, a couple of our recent favourites.

Paska

Serves 6-8

You'll need a pudding basin and a clean cloth (muslin if you have it, chux if you don't).

1/2 cup chopped crystallised ginger
1/4 cup mixed peel
1/2 cup currants
1/4 cup chopped dried figs
1/4 cup chopped dried pear or apricot
2 tablespoons Amaretto
100 grams butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds
zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 orange
2 tablespoons lemon juice
750 grams fresh ricotta
1/2 cup sour cream

Line pudding bowl with a damp cloth.

Mix dried fruit with Amaretto and infuse for a couple of hours.

Cream butter and sugar until light, then mix in egg yolks one at a time. Add zest and ricotta and mix well. Transfer to a bowl (assuming you've been using a food processor until now) and stir in soaked fruit, lemon juice and toasted almonds. Fold in sour cream. Transfer to the lined pudding bowl and cover the mixture with the extra cloth. Refrigerate overnight or for at least 8 hours.

Turn out to serve with dried fruit, especially ginger, and Amaretto.

Chocolate cake

5 tablespoons caster sugar
275 grams plain dark chocolate, chopped
175 grams unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
5 eggs, separated
40 grams plain flour, sifted
pinch salt
icing sugar for dusting
course white sugar and butter for lining the tin

Preheat oven to 160 C. Butter a 24 cm cake tin and sprinkle with sugar.

Melt butter, chocolate and 2 tablespoons of sugar in a large saucepan over low heat. Remove from the heat and stir in vanilla essence. Leave to cool slightly then whisk in egg yolks, one at a time, followed by the flour.

Beat egg whites until soft peaks form, then add remaining sugar and beat until stiff and glossy. Whisk around 1/3 of the whites into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the rest.

Transfer mixture to the tin, tapping gently to remove air bubbles. Bake for around 40 minutes, or until the centre is slightly springy. Transfer to a cooling rack and sprinkle with icing sugar once the cake is cool.

The cake is essentially chocolate flavoured butter, so it will keep for a while, but I've never known it to last the day. It's lovely with berries.

I'm dreaming of...

2007-04-27T11:29:00.000+01:00

cupcakes and ice cream and creme brulee. Really, anything which involves the vanilla pods which just arrived (oh the joys of online shopping). Gorgeous, glossy and oily bourbon vanilla pods from Madagascar. My office is heady with the scent. It's going to be an excellent weekend.

Sunny, colourful, fabulous Madrid

2007-04-26T15:46:00.000+01:00

Seeing the forecasts of grey skies and rain for Madrid last weekend, I didn't have terribly high hopes for our visit last weekend. But it seems the weather realised it owed me after our Paris trip turned out to be much colder and wetter than the forecasts had promised, and we had beautifully long, clear, warm sunny days to wander around the Spanish capital, visiting parks and tapas bars and museums and tapas bars and shops and tapas bars and shops. It was great! A wonderful city - bright and cheerful and friendly. We ate and drank too much, did an unprecedented amount of shopping (gasp!) and recovered with an afternoon nap in the park. Perfect.

It was also lovely to work in a small office again, where everyone knows each other and people talk to the receptionists. Working out of the Madrid office on Monday, I felt the closest thing to homesickness I've felt since we left Australia a year ago. I don't plan on moving back to Oz anytime soon, if ever, but I think our years in London are limited. Or maybe I'll just move to a smaller firm. Who knows?

Today's Dilbert

2007-04-26T12:11:00.000+01:00

For anyone who has ever been involved in a work blog. Genius.

Cravings

2007-04-25T16:08:00.000+01:00

Suddenly I have a craving for saffron pashmak and no London supplier. Does anyone know of any Persian food stores in London?

Just try not to cry

2007-04-20T10:35:00.000+01:00

This year's Pulitzer Prize for feature photography goes to Renée C. Byer of the Sacramento Bee. Start with the first photo and work your way through, reading the text of each. It's powerful stuff.

Disappointing

2007-04-18T13:36:00.000+01:00

Today in the staff restaurant there were hazlenut creme brulees. Now I'm totally incapable of passing up on a creme brulee, so I broke my new Only Salads For Lunch vow (I'd like to say, until now, two weeks and going strong). And I wish I hadn't. It's terrible. It's not cooked, it has so much ground hazlenut that it is really heavy and gluggy, and just to be pedantic, I don't think it has any cream in it. All round disappointing. But it has inspired me to try making Frangelico creme brulee. With chunks of caramelised hazlenuts on top. Yum.

Down and Vego in Paris and London

2007-04-07T18:33:00.000+01:00

Ok, so its been a fairly long time in between posts. But due to popular demand I'm back. (Well, due to Margie's demand really.)

I'm not quite sure what to write about that Margie hasn't mentioned already. We went to Paris for our anniversary, which was great. All rumours about French people being arrogant jerks to foreigners seem to be totally untrue as long as you are put a little effort into speaking French - even if your French is totally appalling. One of the major things that stuck me about Paris was the sheer number of Americans there. Every time we sat down to eat we found we were sitting next to Americans, you could hear them everywhere, and there was one night when a group of very loud Americans in the hotel room next to us just wouldn't shut up until the wee hours of the morning. And we went to Paris in the off season! Just as Melbourne has the highest population of Greeks anywhere in the world outside Athens (apparently) Paris must have the (itinerant) highest population of Americans anywhere in the world outside America.

As Margie has mentioned already Paris was great. That said, like most places in Europe it's not exactly a vegetarian's paradise. At one restaurant when I told the waiter I was vegetarian threw his hands up, exclaimed "Monsieur!"and walked away. Sure he was friendly, and he was doing it as a joke, and he did eventually come back, but as far as I can tell that's pretty much the best you can hope for as a vego in Paris. Upon his return he consulted with the chef and they decided they could cook me an omelette. I accepted, but Margie could see me trying to hid the fall in my expression. I had so many omelettes and other egg based meals in Paris that I was ready to cry if someone kindly offered to whip me up an omelette. Our next trip big trip is damn well going to be somewhere that has an extensive menu of things catering specifically to vegetarians. So that means somewhere like India or......... Well, probably just India.

I think the photo's Margie has put up on flickr show most of the places we went, so I won't go into an itinerary break down, but to sum it all up it was great. And it was nice to go to a city where the majority of people weren't shaped like apples, the teenagers wore more than just hoodies, and there were lots of people walking a variety of friendly looking dogs. The day after our return home to London I was walking along and saw a bunch of fat loud teenagers dressed in hoodies and tracksuit gear walking along at night with their status symbol pit bull and thought "Ah London!"

I think that's probably enough for now. Goodbye people

Ps - Ok, having received some feedback on this post let me just make it clear - I loved Paris. As Margie has said already, if we could speak French and sort Visas we'd move there in a second. I am just having a whinge. It's what I do. I could write about all the good things that happened while we were there, but personally I find tales of amusing misfortune more engaging than tales of pleasant sightseeing times.

Memories

2007-04-03T20:56:00.000+01:00

There were swans in Deptford Creek tonight as I was coming home from work. It made me cheerful, and reminded me of the Sunday afternoons Vaughn and I used to spend by the lake in Canberra with a bag full of stale bread, feeding the swans and munching on whatever delightful something we had bought the Silo Bakery on our way there. Good times.

Plastic bag ban

2007-03-30T14:42:00.000+01:00

San Francisco's Board of Supervisors approved legislation on Tuesday which, if passed, will ban San Francisco's supermarkets and chain pharmacies from using petroleum based plastic bags. Instead they will have a choice of corn-starch based plastic bags or recycled paper bags, both of which are recyclable.

Kudos!

What do the stairs smell like today?

2007-03-29T15:04:00.000+01:00

There is a stairwell at work that I'm pretty convinced leads to Somewhere Else. Everytime I go into it, it smells of something different. The first week of last month the stairwell at various times smelt of decaying flesh, vanilla and roses. Today it smells of gun powder.

Paris

2007-03-25T21:42:00.000+01:00

If it's possible to be in love with a city, I think I'm in love with Paris. If I could speak French and sort a Visa, I'd move there in a flash (if Vaughn could overcome his vegetarianism, which was rather a hindrance for him in Paris). Beautiful city, lovely people, wonderful food, great wine, all round fabulous.

Photos are up on Flickr.

Going, going...

2007-03-15T15:05:00.000Z

Lunchtime today saw me pouring over the Time Out guide to eating and drinking in Paris and a very handy little phrase book some friends lent us. Would you believe there is a restaurant with an all-souffle menu? Mmmmm souffle.

Paris, here we come!

Spring is sprung

2007-03-12T16:57:00.000Z

The last few weeks have seen daffodils springing up in the most unlikely looking places in London. Add to this the sounds of birdsong and ice-cream vans, and it's looking like Spring has sprung. And it's very nice.

Winter fading

2007-03-09T18:41:00.000Z

I left work at 5:30 today, and it was still light.

More political luv

2007-03-09T14:08:00.000Z

Reading Phillip Adam's column in The Australian is one of the highlights of my week. Especially this week.

Rose creme caramel

2007-03-08T21:14:00.000Z

I came across a recipe for rose petal flan today and fell for the idea immediately. I dropped into Waitrose on the way home to get some ramekins and got to cooking straight away when I got home (stopping briefly to put on some music - I can't cook without music). By the time Vaughn arrived home I was the very picture of domestic, apron and all.

Just a couple of hours later and my tummy is feeling very content. If I were a cat, I'd be purring. As it is, I'm struggling to find enough will power to not eat the second serving that's in the fridge.

Rose creme caramel

Caramel
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tbsp water

Custard
2 cups milk (I used semi-skimmed)
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp rose water

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees.

Caramel: melt sugar and water over a medium heat until golden brown. Remove from heat and divide equally between ramekins, coating the bottom of each. Place ramekins in deep baking dish.

Custard: heat milk and sugar over a medium heat until sugar in melted and milk is warm to the touch. Do not let the milk boil. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk remaining ingredients. Temper the egg mix with 1/2 cup or so of the warm milk mixture, whisking as you add the milk. Reduce heat under milk mixture to low then whisk in the egg mixture. Remove from the heat and add divide custurd equally between ramekins.

Pour enough water into the baking dish to come half way up the ramekins. Bake on middle shelf until custard is gently set in the middle, about 45 minutes. Chill until cold. To serve, run a knife around the edge of the custard then upturn on a plate.

De-licious.

Restaurant recommendation

2007-03-05T16:12:00.000Z

I suffered a small heart break last week when I was told that the restaurant I had my heart set on for our anniversary dinner in Paris didn't cater for vegetarians. (I had to admire their stance. If only I'd made it a couple of years ago!) But I'm pleased to say that I didn't really consider the possibility of going without Vaughn for more than a couple of seconds.

I'm also pleased to say that I think I've found a good alternative, even if it doesn't have the same views. Now we have just four more nights to cater for while we're in Paris, and I'm seeking restaurant recommendations.

Shhh

2007-02-22T13:25:00.001Z

I'm scared to say it too loudly in case it goes away, but it seems we finally have internet access at home. And to think it only took 3 months of waiting and hassling our 'service provider'.

We've posted some photos from our Berlin trip last December on our Flickr site. Enjoy! More London photos to come, and then Paris next month.

Grumble

2007-02-21T16:50:00.000Z

Phone calls from banks irritate me. Someone will call me on my mobile purporting to be from my bank. There will almost certainly be very poor reception and I will struggle to hear. That someone will then explain that for my protection they need to verify who I am and would I please give them my full name, address and account details. And then be mystefied when I explain that no, I wont do that. I have no idea who they are or where they are calling from and I'm certainly not going to pass on such details to a complete stranger. If you are from my bank, please write to me if you want to contact me. Or give me some way of checking you are who you say you are.

If it's not raining, why am I getting wet?

2007-02-12T17:08:00.000Z

There is a kind of rain here in London that we just don't get in Australia. It's sneaky. It doesn't really look like rain, it doesn't feel like rain, but walk in it for a couple of minutes and you'll find yourself quite damp. Other times, like lunchtime today when I went for a walk, it rains properly. Then you get absolutely soaked.

Lovely day

2007-02-09T10:49:00.000Z

Yesterday was much too nice a day to go to work, especially with my glands imitating footballs. There were a few of inches of snow when we woke up, which were steadily added to during the day. Lots of lovely soft, white snow. So pretty. We stayed home, drank tea, watched the West Wing and had afternoon tea with our neighbours. Oh, and we made a snowman :) Photos to come when we finally have Internet access at home (don't get me started).

This and that

2007-02-02T10:06:00.000Z

It amazes me the extent to which music affects my emotions. On the way to work this morning, I was listening to Matisyahu and then Norah Jones. Despite the many reasons to be feeling a bit down at the moment, I've been walking along the corridors humming to myself, bursting into chorus in the stairwells if I think no one is there to hear. The music somehow reminds me how lucky I am - a wonderful husband, the best of family and friends, pretty good health (no signs of yellowness recently, and the other day I had six glasses of wine with no nasty repercussions - that's worthy of a toast, I think!), a good job with lots of potential, living in a great city, in a lovely unit. All in all, I'm feeling cheerful.

This weekend we have some good friends coming over to dinner at long last. This is the first weekend this year that both couples were free. I'd like to think my busy social life was the reason, but sadly not. On the menu: sweet potato and goats' cheese pies and my mum's wonderful lemon delicious pudding. I'm also planning to experiment with a chocolate chili cake.

Happy Friday, all!

It's a new era

2007-01-25T09:59:00.000Z

Australia Day without the Hottest 100. In theory I could stream it, but with no Internet access at home and the world's most rigid IT system at work, it's not looking good. Still, there are BBQs to be had and kangaroo meat to be consumed. It's not going to be an entirely Oz free day. I plan on being as Oz as possible at work, 'occa' accent and all. I might even go to a Walkabout. It's going to be great.

Hope you all have a wonderful Australia Day!

SNOW!!

2007-01-25T09:53:00.001Z

Yesterday on the way to work we stopped along the way to throw snowballs at each other. SNOW!! We woke to find a couple of inches of white on everything (including the parsley, which was less than happy about it), and got very excited. The world looks so pretty in a white coat.

Standing on my soapbox

2007-01-18T15:53:00.000Z

An article in today's Australian cheered me enormously. I spluttered with anger and incomprehension for a good month last year at the government's behaviour regarding the ACT Civil Unions Act, which (very briefly) allowed those in same sex partnerships similar rights as those in 'real' marriages.

And another, slightly clearer photo

2007-01-14T15:15:00.000Z

From the side of a dual-carriage way in Surrey. There are many things I like about this shot, not least of which is that it shows blue sky.

Getting oot and aboot

2007-01-14T15:13:00.000Z

(though actually South West and not North or Wales as the bad accent might have indicated)

The times, they are a-changing

2007-01-11T11:08:00.001Z

Tomorrow is my last day in job number 4 of 2006. I chose to leave after only a relatively short amount of time, and I'm going to a job I think could be great, but there are things I will miss about this position. The 20 minutes door-to-door commute, the views from the 35th floor (particularly at sunset, it's really quite stunning), the people. But most of all, the sense of ownership and achievement in a big project. In the last couple of weeks I've started to feel on top of the job and have been working quite hard on my intranet project; designing and creating one from scratch is something I've previously had no exposure to, and found more than a little overwhelming to begin with. Today, my penultimate day, we've managed to install the server and start creating. It's quite exciting. But perhaps it's a good thing to be leaving now: if I stayed much longer I might slowly morph into an incurable geek (please be kind and leave this one alone! I know it's an easy shot).

Building castles in the sky

2007-01-08T09:13:00.000Z

Still the two of us... just in case you're curious, this IS still the Vaughn and Margie blog. Blogger recently changed platforms and Vaughn has yet to move his account over to this new one. Hence, you see my profile to the right and not Vaughn's.

Food, glorious food! Hot sausage and mustard

2007-01-05T16:28:00.000Z

I've been doing some longer than usual hours at work this week, trying to finish of the first stage on the intranet project I've been working on, and making sure things are in a fit state to be handed over to the next person. Yes, I'm leaving. Job number five in 12 months starts on the 15th, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll be working in the corporate department of the last firm I worked for (as a temp) as a Professional Support Officer. It's a big jump toward where I'd like to be, and I feel very privileged to be offered such a position, usually given to lawyers with several years experience.

But what I meant to write about was the various blogs I've been reading during some of these longer than usual hours. It mightn't come as a surprise to any of the Brenans out there, but I think I'm addicted to food blogs. Almost half of my RSS subscriptions are to food blogs, and each morning I arrive to several new mouth-watering recipes. My favourite blog at the moment is Milk and Cookies, written by a Sydneysider and filled with wonderful recipes and pictures. It was one of the many things that inspired me to buy a blender this week. I'm very excited about it, and have been having lovely daydreams about all the nice things I'm going to cook with it. Vaughn, inexplicably, wasn't so excited. Strange as it may seem, he wasn't really very interested in hearing about the specifications of different machines and why it is important to have a range of speeds and a dough hook. Bizarre. I'm sure he'll come round, though, when the cakes start appearing. And meringues. And crepes. And smoothies. And mousse. And...

Belated Christmas greetings

2007-01-02T17:34:00.000Z

A belated merry Christmas and happy new year to all (from one who relies on work for internet access)!

This morning when I logged in to my work PC an alarmingly large number of blog posts floated on to my screen. My various inboxes were neck deep in letters, emails, magazines (work related!) and other less interesting things. It's mid-afternoon now, and I'm finally on top of it all enough to read friends' Christmas and New Years wishes, and to feel mildly guilty for my lapse in blogging duties.

We had a lovely break, with various Christmas and New Years festivities. Christmas day saw us lunching with friends for our first 'orphans Christmas', then partying with our neighbours until the wee hours of the morning, playing twister and limbo, group drumming and singing. These same neighbours also cooked us breakfast the next morning, the lovely people. All in all, a wonderful couple of days.

Other things that kept us entertained and or busy were, in no particular order: our bed broke (because we were cheap and bought a crappy bed - minds out of the gutter, please), an impromptu 4-day visit from one of my very favourite people, the fireworks on New Years Eve, a tummy bug, the post-Christmas sales.

O Tannenbaum

2006-12-20T17:13:00.000Z

This morning before work Vaughn and I braved the cold and the market stallers' vans trying to squeeze through ridiculously small spaces with little regard for any mere humans in the way, and came home with a Christmas tree. Luckily for Vaughn, who plans to hit the gym tonight, I have grocery shopping to do and a friend to visit on the way home, or I'm not sure I'd have the control not to start decorating without him.

Ch-ch-chilly London

2006-12-20T17:12:00.000Z

The forecast for the next five days is fog, with temperatures ranging from -2 to 5. All of a sudden, it's quite chilly here in London town. Breath is visible even in the middle of the day, and my very selective frugalness is rapidly beginning to subside in the realisation that I need a winter coat. Pronto.

In the meantime, I'm well and truly in holiday mode after four days in Berlin. I'm counting down to Friday lunchtime and the 10 day break.

Friendly folk

2006-12-19T17:51:00.000Z

We've been in our new place for a bit over three weeks now, and I'm liking the area more and more. It's not as green and beautiful as Islington. There are no lovely Victorian terrace houses. It's a bit dirty. But the people are much more friendly.

A few days after we moved in I did a really big grocery shop after work. It was a bit silly to try to do it by myself, but I had only really meant to get a few things and then got carried away. A shopowner in our street saw me struggling and left his shop unattended to carry home my groceries for me. I'd struggled from Waitrose in Canary Wharf, to the DLR station, and then from Deptford Bridge DLR to our street. I'd been stopping overy 20 metres or so to put down the bags, trying to regain feeling in my fingers, and by the time I passed his shop I was really tired. My arms were aching and my hands were numb. It was only about 50 metres to our flat, but I was so grateful.

On Sunday, fresh off the plane from Berlin, I was on a mission to find the last of the ingredients I needed for the Christmas puddings (I'm making two - one for me and one for S in return for a Christmas cake for which I bought some delicious marzipan in Berlin). Luckily, there is a few grocery places on our street - nice little corner store type places, with eclectic mixes of Asian (in the Australian sense of the word), African, Carribean and British food. Walking into one of these stores, I heard a man call out from across the street 'Alright' (English for how are you). He sounded like he was calling out to a friend, so I didn't turn around.
'Hi'
'Are you shopping for one or two?'
I thought it was a little strange to be continuing the one-sided conversation, but since he clearly wasn't talking to me, I went on my merry way. The next thing I knew, the voice was right behind me and this time clearly was talking to me. How was I? Was I having a good day? What was my name? Was I cooking for Sunday lunch? Oh, for Christmas pudding. Could he have some too?

It was all a bit surreal, but very friendly and cheerful. And as he was leaving the shop he called out 'Bye, Margie Margie Margie'.

By the time I left the store, the shop assistant, who greeted me by name having overheard the conversation, had also invited himself to Christmas pudding.

I'm also now a celebrity in the local curry joint, where I got takeaway last night. I have no idea why, but they wanted to take my photo with all the staff to put up on the wall. It'd make sense if it were a new restaurant, or if there were already photos of happy customers, but as it is it's a bit of a mystery. But £2.50 for a curry, I wasn't complaining.

I like Deptford, and, despite Vaughn's Crazy, I like the people.

Political luv

2006-12-13T16:14:00.000Z

Somehow my job as an 'information professional' (cough) hasn't kept me very up to date on Australian events. The glorious news of Keven Rudd taking up the Labor leadership, and Peter Garrett being promoted to the front bench (as Environment Minister no less), has only recently found its way on to my radar. Happy, happy days! I feel a warm glow just thinking about it.

Each interview I read cheers me. Nice clear statements of priorities and policies. A political figure with a firm grasp on the language, talking about some of the things I've been wanting to hear about: a bill of rights, reconciliation, climate change, foreign aid.

I think I'm in political luv. If the ALP wins next year's election, I may just faint from excitement.

Our new place

2006-12-13T15:26:00.000Z

Hi to anyone reading this.

I know I haven't been the most prolific blogger of late, but Margie's been doing such a bang up job of it that I haven't really felt as though the story of my life hasn't been getting out there for any interested people to read about.

So what do I have to add that Margie hasn't said already? We've moved into a great new flat. It has almost no storage room, and a bedroom the size of a shoebox, but its a great space overall and we're both now happy with where all the big stuff and decorations go. Since we were able to arrange and decorate our house with almost no disagreement whatsoever, we are following the next logical step and driving each other crazy with an ongoing war about where the various cleaning products should be stored.

The flat is pretty convenient, ie. it takes no more than an hour to the places we normally go. It's on a main street which holds a market 3 times a week. While this will probably be convenient for shopping for things like fresh fish, meat, vegetables, cheap terrible clothes and broken electical appliances, it certainly wasn't convenient on the day we were moving.

Knowing nothing about the market we arrived in a van we were hiring by the minute only to find out we had no access to our street. So we parked on an adjacent street, emptied all our stuff out of the van and began doing a relay race between all our worldly possessions and our new place. Of course, as soon as we got all the stuff out of the van it started to pour down with rain.

Being an optimist I see it as a reminder not to get too attached to your material possessions. I imagine a lot of other people might have seen it as incredibly bad luck. That said although everything got pretty wet, nothing seemed to suffer much damage, and it was all pretty funny, if a bit frantic at the time.

Having a bedroom overlooking the market is kind of interesting too, although living almost right next to a fishmonger does result in an interesting smell sometimes, and the market store holders aren't exactly the quietest people in the world when they are setting up in the morning. Also, as we discovered on the weekend the area isn't totally free of crazies, but no where really is. It's just unfortunate that red hair seems to be the strongest Crazy magnet known to mankind. There's nothing like having some Crazy take issue with you when you've done nothing more than step outside of your apartment onto the street. Of course my old 1-2-1-2 combo followed by my patented jumping double spin kick made short work of that unfortunate fellow. (NB one of the sentences in this paragraph is not true)

As Margie has mentioned we're going to Berlin tomorrow. More blogs and photos will no doubt follow shortly.

Exciting times

2006-12-12T15:47:00.000Z

I'm always excited in the weeks leading up to Christmas, but this year I'm especially excited. To start with, I'm just generally excited by having our own place at long last. It's brilliant. Even having to deal with the most incompetent rental agency in the world isn't detracting from its fabulousness. (Aren't I glad in hindsight I didn't link to the agency listing of our unit when we got it - now I can bag them till my heart's content.)

And if having our very own, fabulous unit weren't enough, on Thursday we're going to Berlin for 3 days. Vaughn, the lucky thing, was there last year for a conference, but this will be the first time I will have been back there since mum and I moved to Oz when I was teeny tiny. I'm looking forward to wandering our our old neighbourhood and seeing the place I lived in for the earliest bit of my life. I'm also really looking forward to the Christmas Markets! Oooooooh! Decorations for the tree, and pyramids, and gingerbread houses. And then when we get home we can get a Christmas tree. I LOVE Christmas.

And possibly most exciting of all, I chatted with a very dear friend earlier today whom I haven't heard from in about a year and a half. And though our lives have taken us in different directions, it was amazing how similar our last 1-2 years have been. Like me, she met and married the perfect man, and unlike me, she had a beautiful baby boy last week, Konstantinos Andreas. Now we'll just have to have a trip to Athens to meet him!

Bizarre weather

2006-12-07T16:30:00.000Z

There was a tornado this morning in north west London. Yes, really. Bizarre. For me, on the other side of the city. I imagine those actually affected by it feel somewhat differently.

From the 35th floor in Canary Wharf, though, the weather has been very impressive today. We've gone from blue skies to fierce winds, rain, thunder and lightning, to blue skies and back again within a couple of hours. Right now there are black and threatening clouds immediately above the city, while above that the sky is perfectly clear and losing its colour as the sun goes down. It's really quite spectacular.

One of the things I like about my new job is the office. We have amazing views over London city and the Thames, and get quite lovely sunsets.

Feeling toasty

2006-12-05T17:23:00.000Z

Having been in our unit for a bit over a week, we thought Sunday was the perfect time to have a house-warming party. A week seemed like enough time to unpack everything and get a bit settled, and having a deadline like a party is incentive to actually doing all the stuff that needs doing.

Sunday was a beautiful day here in London Town - clear blue skies and warm weather, and we were chuffed that so many of our friends cheerfully gave up the last couple of hours daylight to celebrate with us. Our little unit is now feeling comfortably toasty and well-loved.

After 3 years of sharehousing (2 years with Vaughn), I'm loving having our own space. Having more than one room to make my own, being able to walk from the bathroom to the bedroom sans towel, not coming home to other people's mess, being able to play whatever music I want in the living room. It's bliss.

Happy Friday!

2006-12-01T09:24:00.000Z

It's the end of my first week at my new job, and almost a week since we moved in to our new flat, and I'm exhausted. It's been a week of hiccoughs and uncertainties on all fronts, which, I'm pleased to say, now look to be subsiding.

The clinically neutral, mostly veneer furniture which we had been promised would not be in our unit and which actually was in our unit when we arrived, has now been taken away. And the furniture we bought for the place is now in the place. For the last 5 days our new neighbours, Sam and Sean have been kindly housing the beautiful Jarrah bookcase we couldn't fit up the stairs. (Or at least the bits of it that made it that far. We've got some repair work to do. ) Yesterday, the builder, who was around anyway, kindly offered to move it for us. I wasn't there to see it, but I imagine it was very impressive - he and his assistant lifting it from the balcony beneath us, up to our place.

And speaking of our new neighbours, I think we've hit the jackpot. Sam works for a food company and has been showering us with chocolate. I must have done something right in a previous life - the gods are clearly smiling on me!

I'm looking forward to having a day at home tomorrow, sorting out the last of the boxes, putting together our furniture and arranging things to our liking. I'm also looking forward to spending a couple of hours in the kitchen preparing for our housewarming on Sunday. Our last place had quite a nice kitchen, but somehow it just feels different having my own - one one else's mess around, ingredients where I can reach them (this is an ongoing problem - in our last place I needed a stand on a chair to get to most of our food. Here I can reach the food because I've put it in the cupboard meant for saucepans, but I struggle to reach most other things. I thought about getting a step ladder, but then remembered I have a husband :) ) and the incentive of a party. It's been years since I've had my own place, to throw parties in whenever I like. I'm hoping this will be a return to the days of McIlwraith Ave, where we had regular parties for no good reason - the washing machine warming party, is one that springs to mind.

We got it!

2006-11-22T14:38:00.000Z

As of Saturday, we'll officially be Southsiders. We're moving into a brand new (!!) 1 bedroom flat (yes, our very own place!) in Deptford High Street. It's nice and light and clean and did I mention new, it has a gas stove and oven, a very large living area (by London standards), real wood floors, and a heated towel rail. It also has a fridge/freezer the size of a large book, a tiny bedroom and next to no storage.

We'd heard mixed reports about Deptford before we started house hunting - some people very positive, some less so. It's quite close to town and sits in between two very nice areas, Canada Water and Greenwich. Deptford itself is now touted as 'up and coming'. Picture Fortitude Valley ten years ago and you're not too far off: it's a bit dirty with lots of good features, not least of which is the proximity to town and the Docklands, where I'll be working as of Monday. Oh yes, it's been a week of change. The move will shave off around 40 minutes from Vaughn's commute on the days he's working Way The Hell East Side (also known as Barking), and I'm hoping the extra 20 minutes ride to work for me will make me super trim and fit (not just lazy and bus-catching).

In the meantime, my nestiness has stepped up a notch. I'm Ikea-ing, Argos-ing and eBay-ing fit to bust. There's furniture and saucepans and glasses and cushions and, well, almost everything to be bought. And once we move in I'll be able to start up a mini garden, with herbs and flowers in pots. And bonsai, of course. It'll be great.

Now to find that winning lotto ticket...

Trying my patience... and a lovely weekend

2006-11-20T16:54:00.000Z

Today I've been going crazy. Crazy about houses. Crazy about jobs. Crazy about everything.

I've been trying to be patient, calm, nice to the rental agency, but enough is enough. How can it possibly take TWO AND A HALF WEEKS to decide whether or not to approve a tenancy application? Really, I want to know. It's been two weeks now since we put in the application, which we were told would take a few days at most to be decided on, and we're now told probably Thursday. Thursday! We're supposed to be moving on Saturday!

Further to the Brits Do Everything Slowly theme, on Friday I got a job offer for a position I applied for about 7 weeks ago. A few months ago I would have leapt for joy at this offer - the pay is good, the people are nice, it's in a good locality in spectacular offices, there would be international travel, I'd be working on something technically interesting. It all sounds pretty good. But it's not law.

They say that moving house and changing jobs are two of the most stressful things you will do in life. So why, oh why, am I doing them both at once YET AGAIN? You'd think I'd have learnt from get-married-quit-job-move-overseas-March. But no. Turns out I'm just not that clever.

On a more positive note, we had a really lovely weekend, with not one but two birthday parties! Friday night we shook (or at least wobbled precariously) our roller-thang at Canvas, where Madonna filmed her 'Sorry' clip, which left us with slightly bruised egos if not knees. It was tremendous fun - and some of the costumes were amazing! It's about the only time I can remember thinking that 80s get up looked cool. Somehow the crazy bright colours and shapes of the clothes really suited the roller-disco. If I remember, I'll post some photos laters.

Saturday and birthday number two took us to Greenwich, one of my favourite places in London, to celebrate with old and new friends and to sample some (lots) of S's wonderful cooking. It was a really nice day, and we met some lovely people. On Sunday when we were making up the invite list to our looming housewarming party, we were delighted to find lots of people on the list. It seems we've made some friends :)

All in all it was a wonderful weekend.

Back in the swing

2006-11-15T09:00:00.000Z

Or at least the choir.

Last night I joined the Christmas choir at work. It's been a while since I've done any real singing: there were no groups I wanted to sing with in Canberra, and the very small attempt I made to get in contact with a choir here didn't work. And I wasn't really expecting this work choir to count as 'real' singing - you know, jingle bells and white Christmas and the like - but the music is lovely. We're singing a couple of French pieces (I love French songs), a couple of Latin pieces, an Old Spanish piece and a couple of English language pieces (one of them is the biggest piece of American schmulz you'll ever hear). And I'm singing soprano, which I was feeling both eager and trepidatious about. But it turns out I needn't have been worried, and it was all tremendous fun. The music was gorgeous, the people lovely and very friendly, and it was great to be singing again.

The other thing that struck me during the rehearsal it how much more sense these christmas carols make in this climate. The music is beautiful no matter where you are, but the songs just feel different here - they fit with the mood and the weather.

Waiting... waiting...

2006-11-09T14:04:00.000Z

I freely admit that patience has never been one of my virtues. When the timing of something is beyond my control I usually try to fill in the time by planning whatever it is in minute detail. But after several days of this I've already chosen furniture and layout of the flat and have mentally moved in (which, of couse, means I've mentally moved out of our current place - much nicer since it should mean I don't have to clean when we actually do move - afterall, I don't live there anymore). If we don't get it I just don't know what I'll do!

Update

2006-11-02T17:59:00.000Z

After a nerve-racking few hours, we have come to an agreement with the landlord and put down a deposit. They've agreed to our proposed move in date and to kittens, and we didn't even need to sweeten the deal with the extra deposit and longer lease we were prepared to offer. Tomorrow we put in the formal application and hopefully I can report back in the next couple of days. Assuming all goes well, we'll be moving in on the 25th of November.

Oh, the suspense!

2006-11-02T11:25:00.000Z

Vaughn is in negotiations with a real estate agent / landlord over a unit we saw the other night and the suspense is killing me! The big hurdle (kittens) has been crossed: apparently they're fine with that. Now we're (they're) discussing furniture.

Changing of the seasons

2006-11-01T09:13:00.000Z

It's suddenly quite a bit colder here in London. The leaves are well and truly falling, and with British Summer Time having ended over the weekend it feels much darker, much earlier. Winter is definitely on its way. As is Guy Fawkes Night.

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,'twas his intent
to blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys,
God save the King! Hip hip hoorah!

A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah! Hip hip hoorah!

Not surprisingly, the final verse in this rhyme is usually left out. I'm not crazy about all of the Pope's beliefs, but I can't say I feel the need to burn him in a tub of tar.

It starts

2006-10-30T17:35:00.000Z

We gave notice yesterday and so have started in earnest the business of house hunting. I've been vaguely looking for a while now, but not to the extent that I had called any agents before this last weekend. The few I managed to get through to (what is it with real estate agencies not being open on weekends? When do they expect people to be able to view the properties? Or do much in the way of looking? Honestly, they want people in full time work, but make it almost impossible for us. /rant) said the properties, which had been up on the websites for a grand total of half a day, had been let. I get the feeling London's might be a tough rental market.

On the up side, tomorrow and Wednesday after work (leaving work early - did you really think the estate agents would work late? Sorry, it just slipped out. I guess I hadn't really finished ranting) we're going to see a couple of nice looking flats. I'm looking forward to having our own place and going decorating crazy.

The travel bug

2006-10-27T10:29:00.000+01:00

There's no doubt about it. I've got the travel bug. To begin with, the symptoms were quite mild, with the usual itchy feet and looking at travel websites and books. But over the last couple of months I've had many, many friends go to wonderful places and come back with travel stories and photos. Greece, France, America, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Finland, Scotland. And each time I see a photo or hear a story my symptoms increase, until now I compulsively check travel websites at least once a day and check friends' photo sites to see if there are any news pictures and to tempt myself just a little bit more. We're going to Berlin in December for four days, and I'm really looking forward to it, but it's not enough. I've got the travel bug. I've got to go to more places more often. One day soon, I can tell, the bug is going to take over any sense of fiscal and professional responsibility I have and I'm going to arrive home with my arms laden with tickets to 15 places in three months with no idea how I'm going to pay for it or get time off work.

Jumping in

2006-10-26T12:26:00.000+01:00

We've been talking about many things recently that will have a great effect on our lives if they come to pass, moving house and changing career being just two of them. Sometimes I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a pool, knowing I'm going to be in there soon swimming but am waiting for something. I wish I could just jump in and get started.

Friends from Oz

2006-10-26T12:11:00.000+01:00

We had a lovely evening yesterday with old friends of mine from Australia, catching up over some delicious Japanese food. It's so nice to be in the company of people I feel relaxed with and have shared history and interests with. I'm looking forward to having more of those times as we make more friends here and have more visitors from Australia.

The other thing I enjoyed about last night was spending time with the wife of a dear friend of mine. I'd like to count her as a friend in her own right but I get the impression we're still treading carefully around each other. They have been married for several years, but until now we've lived in different cities and haven't spent much time together. I'm glad that's changing.

I hesitated about writing this last bit because I know she reads this blog, but I decided not to let that put me off.