Coq au Vin

After 2 hours (half way!)

Dan's been buying fireworks.

I'm scared!

Coq au Vin

"Before"

Making Pumpkins

Mrs Bedford's Toffee

Blog entries like twitter posts today - this is the precursor to the toffee (finished product posted later today)

Wainer's Advice

Over the summer when Anna & Wainer were here, Wainer was giving Janie some very good advice about nutrition and how to get the right sort of chemicals and nutrients into her body, especially when she's going through a phase of being not well. One of the pieces of advice was to have red wine, not white, and one finger of it...as you can see from the picture, he didn't actually specify WHICH finger! We chose the top one!

You'd have thought someone had taught us to cook!

The last 2 nights we've gone for the 'bitty' tea in grand style! Prawn cocktail - pictured, and fabulous bruschetta with artichokes, anchovies, olives, capers, ham - also in the pic. Really really nice. Last night we even filled vol-au-vents with pizza style toppings. Really superb. They're definitely going to come out for the next dinner party!

Scary Webcam

As a result of the new lapotop, on Thursday night, when Janie arrived for the weekend, we were able to get online on MSN to see Mum and Dad on their webcam! Very scary! In fact when we did "full screen" view it was just like sitting across the dining room table from them at home!
The pic is at a point where we were trying to get some online game thing going! It's all a bit scary close-ups tho! Mum's microphone is very very quiet, we have to have the volume turned up VERY loud, and she has to lean forward into the laptop so we can see what a good job Dad did on her roots!!! It's all been cause for great hilarity!

Mum's new laptop

Yaaaaaaawn, we're a bit tired today - we didn't get in last night 'till 3am! No, nothing like that! Mum's got a new laptop and broadband and we (well Dan) went over to help her set it up and get everything started. Only 2 problems

1. it's Vista
2. it keeps freezing

very distressing on both counts. Even super Dan couldn't work out what was going on. It's very puzzling and we've had to raise a support record with Dell. The only problem is that after 24 hours they've not contacted us (or even sent a confirmation email) and, worse, when Mum phones up for help, I have no idea how to find anything or how to direct her towards the right bits! It's like a foreign language! Hopefully armed with a copy of this though, she'll soon become the family Vista expert!!!

Current TV faves

Greys anatomy (Season 4 Just started)
K-Ville - Cope show based in new orleans (started off very well)
Californication - Great series with the guy from Xfiles
Damages - Lawyer type of show starring glenn close

Don Quixote

Just back from the West Yorkshire Playhouse where we've seen a production of Don Quixote.

2 and a half hours of sheer magic.

The production has had its critics, but all I can say is, you soulless eeejits. How could that performance not have entertained you? We laughed and cried.

See it if you get the chance!

More Imposting?

And this from today - Imposter or real? You decide.....!

13:57 Veronica: my dear daughter, how art thou

mummykins is here

10 minutes

14:08 Veronica: Dont be ignoring me please. Your daddy and i will not be pleased

Imposter on google chat?

So I'm on gmail the other day and Mum's name went to green status - meaning she's online. Now, remembering that I'd given her password to Dan so that he could check the status of her new laptop order...the conversation went like this

14:38 me: dan is that you

or is it mum?

37 minutes

15:16 Veronica: nortee

its ur mum

stinky daughter

33 minutes

15:50 me: hmmmm i think your spelling has deteriorated somewhat, mother dearest

53 minutes

16:43 Veronica: oy my little scratter li

i always wanted to say that but never could

But i can now on this chat thing :)

16:44 so how's u doing?

me: heheehe

So, unless Mum has started with the Altzheimers - I think I need to be careful who I'm chatting to!

Cedric - finally captured

Our new housemate, who we have spotted over the last few days, was finally captured by Dan - unfortunately, using the traditional "glass & postcard" method of spider capture wasn't quite adequate so we had to press the pyrex dish into service!
Where has Cedric been spotted in the last few days

• Liza saw him drop through the window last weekend
• Dan saw Cedric in the kitchen
• Liza saw him in the bathroom cabinet
• Dan saw him scuttling around the lounge

Cedric was finally captured after a fight in which he pulled Dan off the sofa and knocked the coffee table over. Seriously. Look at the size of him!

Athlete

About 3 weeks ago, I came home from work to find 2 tickets on the table - they said 'Athlete' - hmmm I thought. I don't really 'do' concerts - especially ones where you have to stand up - and at the university - hmmmm again!
Well we had to park miles away and walked there from the city centre (in the rain) and queued for about 20 minutes (in the rain) you get the picture.
The first thing that cheered me up was that the beer was quite cheap! Then the 2 support bands came on...1st one wasn't too bad, the second one was, I thought, a bit self indulgent....they seemed to be all about enjoying themselves, and less about doing a performance.
Then Athlete came on. WOW. I'd listened to their new album, and had thought it was OK - but I have to say that LIVE they were FABULOUS! Go and see them if you get the chance!

Too busy to blog!

Well, again there's been a BIG gap since posts! Thankfully it's been because we(well I)'ve been very very busy! So loads to blog - just a bit to catch up on...bear with me!