Mother’s Day is almost upon us in the UK and I have received this glorious gift from the youngest son! Who knows what Thornton’s thought when they had to create the script??!!
(For those perhaps not au fait with The Mummy films, my youngest doesn’t actually wish me dead!!)
How gloriously delicious does THAT look????!! Okay, I have placed it strategically in front of a light, to let you drown in its Christmassy rubiness!! But I swear it is as seductively enticing in real life!!
So…….take a cheap bottle of gin…chuck it into a kilner jar with a generous handful of blackberries, a cinnamon stick, and half a pound of sugar!
Stick it in a dark cupboard for 4 weeks, shaking daily, for the first week, until the sugar dissolves.
Strain through coffee filters into a sterile bottle, don’t squeeze the fruit, will make it cloudy.
It is utterly delicious, either as a liqueur, or mixed with tonic.
Best drank with the most AMAZING sausage rolls EVER!!
500g of good quality sausage meat
500g of pork mince
1 large potato, finely cubed, and boiled till just soft
1 onion, very finely chopped
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
2 tbsp Brown Sauce
Good glug of soy sauce
Good glug of Worcester sauce
Salt
White pepper
Fresh thyme
Fresh parsley
Fresh sage
Mix all the ingredients together. Lay cling film on work surface, place on mixture, form and wrap into sausage shape.
Freeze for 24 hours.
Roll out puff pastry to the width of a pound coin, allowing for ovelap when covering.
Place frozen sausage mix in centre.
Paint edges, and surface of sausage meat, with beaten egg
Roll, tuck, and crimp, eggwash, and cook in oven 220°, for 20 minutes.
Cool slightly, then slice, and consume eagerly!! Delicious!!
My youngest son is starting university next week. So the last month has been the familiar frantic rush of making sure your child won’t break their neck the first time they fly!!
Funding organised…tick…just!! More of that in another post!
Accommodation organised…actually quite special, in a converted Edwardian building, with a balcony, and three fabulous flatmates.
Contents of said accommodation organised, not easy from long distance, but boxes landed today, so offspring can prepare food and sleep in comfort!
Weather has been challenging…torrential rain, flash flooding, gale force winds…welcome to the north of England, my child, a far cry from your home of sun and sea.
But all good. I should be relaxed and slightly smug. As I am. Apart from one small glitch.
In anticipation of a colder clime, I bought a jumper. A chenille jumper. I am a sucker for a bit of chenille. That enticing softness, that multifaceted colour, ohhhhhhh!!! I fall for its snuggly sneakiness EVERY time!
And forget the shedding!
Oh maaaaaan the shedding!! Today, Matthew, (for those slightly confused by the Matthew reference, I include this https://g.co/kgs/2Ey5ee) I have been the hairiest of hairy!! Every room I have been in has a trail of black fur. A miasma of charcoal fuzz. And tonight, as I stripped for my bath, I was confronted by this!
Hmmm!! Attractive!!
But hey!! My baby bear has ventured off to find his growl. My job is done. Briefly. For at least three days before a Maaaaaaam message drops in!!
So yeah. That’s me. Looking up in disbelief at that fat little bastard on his cloud, who had already begun his series of unfortunate events (yes, I know, someone already claimed that description, but believe me, there are no lemons or snickets included in this narrative).
I am actually quite impressed how daintily I am perched on that running board, since dainty is not a word that has EVER been used in the same sentence as my name. At best, lively. At times, unique. Most often, challenging. (Those shoes though!! Clarks or Startrite, love them!)
I recently found a whole FACTORY of photographs of me as a child. My father, for all his foibles, loved a pic, and involved me in the secret arts of developing them, in a dark room at Bristol University. And that unleashed a whole new wave of memories, so I decided I would share them with you all.
And chart my life, properly.
Which won’t be easy.
But mostly, Matthew, it will be fun.
I will leave you with one more photo. Me before me. I love this picture, it is such a snapshot of that time. My mother is the beautiful lady reclined in the background, and I am the bump therein.
Oh!!!! The guy on the right is my Uncle Dave, and he is not naked!! More of that next time.
I know that there are so many people far worse off than me. But tonight I hit the bottom of my sparkle reserve, as I climbed into bed strapped to a monitor, with another machine on the opposite bedside table, and a third implanted in my chest. I cried.
Interesting few years.
Lessons learned.
No matter how much you love, there is no guarantee that love will be returned.
You can work yourself into the ground, the Company will not respect you more, merely expect more.
The capacity to be amazed by your children does not diminish.
Nor does the capacity to be hurt by those you trust most. Including family.
When your arms fall off, putting your pants on is a bastard. Or doing up a bra. And forget make up or hair.
Lack of sunlight and blue sky and sea destroys witches.
As does lack of writing.
I shall prevail.
Survive.
I am back! New life, new stories to share, let the witchness commence!!
I call this Faery Pool because there is something almost magical about the sunlight dancing on the water. Taken with my Samsung S3 mini, I love this camera!!
Three months ago I left the place I have called home for most of my life, to return to the place where I was born. It has been a challenging journey, a scary rollercoaster ride of emotions. I am still in a state of flux, of no fixed abode, adjusting to a way of life almost alien to me. But I have a new job, am making new friends, and tonight I smelt winter on the wind, and gloried in the pleasure of a sky dancing in stars. My life is not perfect, but it is wonderful!! And I am ready to write again!! Happy witch!! Bring on the next chapter!!!
In ten days time, I will leave Gibraltar, my home for nearly forty years. New adventure. New beginning. ‘Tis scary. Bring it on!!
The Daily Post – Snapshot Stories asked us to open any folder and find the first picture of ourselves we came across, then tell the story. This is me, aged seventeen, wearing my favourite dress in the world EVER!!! I bought it from a grotty little shop for just 50 pence, in 1978, and I still have it now!! I chopped several inches off the bottom, but didn’t need to hem it because it didn’t fray. I wore it with Doc Martens, and stilettos, and ballet pumps. It never creased, and it has remained snow white! It was one of the first things my Torn-Apart asked if I still owned when we reunited, and most bizarrely of all, my Fragrant Mother produced a photograph of herself at the age of sixteen wearing the exact same dress!! Incredible!!
Love Lift Us Up – An Officer and A Gentleman
Ok, you always knew it was going to be a weepy!! I have lost track of the number of times I have actually watched this film, and I still sob at all the right places. Richard Gere is obviously meant to be married to me, as he will realise when he finally meets me. Of course, I will have to turn him down, because no-one can ever be more delicious than Torn-Apart!!
This gallery contains 11 photos.
Originally posted on Covey View:
This is my home. It is a magical piece of rock pinned onto the bottom of Spain. It is actually upsidedown, a huge lump of limestone that doesn’t belong to the rest of the land around. It has become a part of our language, *as strong as the rock of…
This really resonated with me. I am not a deeply religious person, coming as I do from a deeply divided family. But I found this beautiful, and hugely uplifting. So I wanted to share.
These flowers had the most wonderful scent.
I saw this on a friends post in one of my email groups and I really liked it. It spoke to me of what I would like to do and to be.
I have been following Mermaid Momma and fell in love with this idea for a post. So I asked her very nicely, and she said I could do it too!! Thank you!! A song a day for 25 days, with a different reason for each choice. So this is my Day One. A song from my childhood.
I was in love with David Essex when I was ten!! I had his picture all over my bedroom wall, and knew all the words to all his songs. I would sit and grin soppily at the screen when he appeared on Top of the Pops, and tape his latest hit off the radio!! This song transports me back to that time, pre video and downloads, when I shared a bedroom with two of my sisters, and my tiny transistor radio was my most treasured possession. The garden we had at the time was split in two, the bottom end full of fruit trees and overgrown. I remember lying on my back in the long grass on warm summer sunday evenings with the radio clamped to my ear, listening to the top forty countdown,and planning my wedding to David! Makes me smile just thinking about it.
Saw this earlier on today, and thought “They must have met me!!” My fragrant mother despairs!!
Bob and Emily 