Eat Your Carrots

Ten Tiny Fingers...

SIL & BILG took delivery of their new baby boy today. Weighing in at 5lb 5oz he turned up a couple of weeks early, and yet still managed to have us all waiting. SIL went into hospital on Wednesday and not much happened at all until this morning and then suddenly it was all over. A beautiful baby boy, Alexander John.
Congratulations to them both from all of us.

27 Long Years - or - How Time Flies

The Wedding Of The Year clashed - or rather coincided - with the 27th anniversary of wife and my's first date! (I think that "my's" isn't really a word, but it is now! How else would you phrase it?). That was 27 long years ago, but it doesn't seem anything like so distant. For one thing, we both feel too young to have possibly known each other for 27 years!
To celebrate we went to Cafe Indigo in the old picture house at Billingham. This is a lovely Indian restaurant who's food is a cut above some of the other places round about. It was very quiet there on a Monday night - we were the only people in there for the entire time that we were in, but that was fine for a romantic anniversary dinner for two. I hope they generate enough business during the rest of the week to keep themselves going, because they really deserve to. Their own website says they are "Firm believers that the best cooking need not rely on hot spices but rather on the use of subtle and often fragrant herbs and spices to provide a great variety of dishes" and this is no lie. No dish that I've had there comes close to blowing your head off, but all are beautifully flavoursome and perfectly cooked (I should point out that in addition to dining here last night I partake of their take-away service as a once-in-a-while lunchtime treat while at work).
Last night we had Dhosa (stuffed pancake) and an Aubergine "boat" stuffed with spiced vegetables and a mint dressing. We've had both of these dishes in the Leeds/Bradford area but this is the only place I've seen them around Teesside. This was followed up by

• Palak paneer (spinach and cheese - a common dish on Indian menus but I've never had it cooked the way they do it. Delightfully creamy, delicately flavoured and slightly sweet, and yet without actually swimming in an overly-rich sauce).
• Shim aur ghobi (green beans and cauliflower).
• Bombay Potatoes (another "standard" but done differently, the potatoes being large wedges cooked to perfection in a lightly spiced tomato-y sauce).
• Mushroom Pilau
• Perswari Nan (nan bread stuffed with coconut, raisins and couscous - gorgeous).

I've also had the vegetable bhuna and the vegetable madras. Both are packed with vegetables (as opposed to the all-sauce-and-no-veg varieties I've had elsewhere) and beautifully spiced. The madras was the hottest of any of the dishes I've had here, but even then the heat didn't make you lose sight (or taste rather) of the other flavours that are going on in there.
The setting is nice - the room is large and tables are not too tightly packed. It occupies a whole floor of what used to be Billingham's cinema and you can still see this from the internal architecture, though they certainly haven't overplayed the "ex-cinema" card and there's thankfully no old memorabilia littering the place.
After we'd eaten we headed off the The Master Cooper, the pub in Acklam where we'd spent our first date all those years ago. It's changed a bit. For one, it was packed that night whereas today it was almost empty, and this despite beer (and Sam Smith's beer at that!) at only £1.50 a pint. Cheapest beer I've had in a long while. It seems a nice pub, decent decor, good beer, and what people there were in there were a pleasant and "canny" bunch. Maybe the smoking ban really is killing pubs.
So 27 years gone, and here's to the next 27!

The Wedding Of The Year

Today was The Wedding Of The Year - at least as far as our families are concerned. Gillian & Gerry, usually referred to in these pages as SIL and BFG, tied the knot in a lovely civil wedding held at Redworth Hall. The whole day passed off fantastically well and the sun even put in an appearance for a while - it was a better day than some get in the summer!
I was chauffeur for the day and the car was decked out in rosettes that were guaranteed to attract the attention of onlookers as we drove to the hotel.

The bridegroom with his three nieces, who were (as you can plainly see) the bridesmaids for the day.
The service included a "candle lighting" ceremony. Someone from each side of the family lights the small candle, then the bride and groom use these to jointly light the large candle. It represents the joining of the two families and seems to be quite a popular part of civil ceremonies these days.

In spite of the decent weather we didn't take too many pictures outside - it was still rather cold after all - but we did pop out for the throwing of confetti.
The bride and her bridesmaids. The girls are all lovely, Susan wanted to steal the youngest one away! (If any child welfare officers are reading this, we didn't REALLY mean that!).
The table set for the reception dinner, or "wedding breakfast" as it's most commonly known - why breakfast I'm not sure, no cornflakes were to be seen anywhere. This was in the same room as the service had been held in, the size of the room making it ideal for a small, intimate gathering such as this one.
Cutting the cake.
The middle bridesmaid had written a couple of lovely poems that we'd used in the invitations and menu cards. She read one of them out during the reception.
At any get together you always have to be wary of gate crashers. This was no exception.
It was an absolutely super day, very informal and much nicer than the over-elaborate and rather stuffy events that weddings can sometimes be. I'm a big fan of these civil ceremonies, and the single-venue option makes it all simpler still - no trailing from place to place and no feeling of "hanging about". Congratulations from us both to Gillian & Gerry. They're a super couple and (I know it's a cliche but it's true) really are made for each other. The best things come to those who wait. And the excitement isn't over yet...

Fame Again

I went to look at something on PhotoBox today and how surprised was I to see my name up there as a testimonial! It's true, StyleBooks are a great product, and I did tell them so, but I'm fairly sure that my email to them continued with "however there is a problem...".

The problems were many in fact, as recounted here last year, and despite repeated attempts I never got a flawless StyleBook, something that was repeated with a friend here at work too. I hope by now they've sorted all of the problems, but I've never gone near StyleBooks since then, I stick to the more reliable PhotoBooks, which are also a great product and I've never had a bad one.

The Big Five-Oh

I was 50 today. No, not 50 years old - come on, do I look 50 years old? No, it was my 50th blood donation. By way of thanks I got a lovely tie pin and a Cross pen. Really, just an extra Tuc Cheese Sandwich biscuit would have done me, but it was a nice touch to mark an occasion I've been looking forward to for the last few years.
Now onwards to 75...

Hanging With Celebs

I was giving blood the other day (my 49th donation) and alongside me on the next bleeding-couch was none other than Tyne-Tees news presenter Rachel Bullock. We exchanged a few words of smalltalk, just the usual "hey, aren't you Rachel Bullock" sort of stuff. I stopped short of asking her to sign my sticking plaster.

It seemed to me that either none of the blood transfusion staff recognised her or else they just didn't mention the fact. Professional decorum perhaps.

It's true what they say about the TV adding pounds - she looked slimmer (and a few years younger) than she does while reading the news. I thought it best not to mention this though, as it was unlikely to sound complimentary!

Lovely Summer

What a lovely summer we're having here in the North East of England. It's been so good, it's only really rained once - non-stop from mid may to now!
It's not all bad - the thing I usually hate about our weather is its unreliability. You plan a BBQ, or a country walk, or a bike ride, or a day at the coast... and then it rains and ruins your plans. At least now it's very reliable - you know it's going to be raining so you don't plan anything, and there's no disappointment. It's given us lots of time to do other things - like all the cooking and baking I mentioned in my other post - and we've put such effort into getting the garden into shape that it almost looks after itself, and looks good despite the weather. It also makes us really appreciate the half hour or so of sun that we see each week (it's shining as I write this).
Yeah, sunny weather. Who needs it.

The Wedding

The day finally arrived (a couple of weeks ago, yes I know I've been remiss) for "the wedding", the item that had been on my Final Countdown side-bar for over two years now. It was the wedding of wife's friend from work, and has been so long in the planning partly because the chosen venue (Headlam Hall) is so popular that you have to book that far in advance to get in. Even then a Saturday is impossible, heaven knows how long in advance you have to book to get a Saturday.
The actual ceremony was held in a pretty special place too, Bowes Museum. This is a spectacularly huge, French Chateau-style building with a wonderful facade and landscaped gardens that makes a lovely venue for a wedding. Wife is pictured on the staircase leading up to the room in which the wedding was held.
Headlam Hall is popular for all the right reasons - it's a superb venue for a wedding reception. An old hall in the middle of the Durham countryside set in acres of its own land and with wonderful gardens, the hotel and its surroundings make a wonderful backdrop to any wedding.
The catering is spot on too, it was probably the best meals I've had at any wedding (the table decorations were the bride's own creation, and she did a very good job of them).
It's not often I wear a suit. I call it my MFI suit - Marriages, Funerals, Interviews. I've not had an interview in 11 years, funerals are (thankfully) few and far between and this is our first wedding in over a decade. Mam says I look my age in a suit, but then there's nothing wrong with looking 21, is there?

Busy, Lately

I've been really busy with stuff lately, hence the lack of blogs. For one thing having just returned from Cyprus necessitates a lot of time spent on sorting out photos for a Photobook and writing about the holiday on VirtualTourist. I have to do that straight away or else I lose the enthusiasm to do it - even then I'm still waning a bit. The weather is too nice and the distractions of being out and about or gardening or just relaxing in the garden are too great. That latter point is alleviated a bit now that I have a notebook, so I can do web stuff outside or in the conservatory while still enjoying sunshine and warmth. The only downside is that Charley is jealous of the other "cat" that sits on his dad's knee and will often muscle in, forcing me to put the notebook down and just sit and cuddle him. It's a hard life, I know.
This weekend we actually managed to get our entire conifer hedge trimmed, both vertically and horizontally, for about the first  time ever. It looks ever so neat and the sense of satisfaction makes the effort worthwhile. In fact the whole garden is looking really good right now. We were just telling a neighbour, it may have taken us 20 years but we've finally got the garden we always wanted - one that looks good but is easy to tend. I'll have to post some pictures of the garden - I meant to do so last year, I even took lots of pictures specifically for that - but I never got around to it.
Last night we had BFG and SIL for dinner - we ate their liver with some fava beans... - no, only kidding. It was Greek themed and very nice, though SIL brought her own dinner - she's having tooth trouble and I guess doesn't trust that I won't put pebbles into my cooking. Anyway, as revenge for not eating my cooking we whipped her and BFG at Sequence once again - I wonder why they ever bother playing us, they always end up going home defeated.

Go Karting!

My workplace had a Karting evening the other week - it was just before I went on holiday and this is the first chance I've had to write about it. When Karting was first mentioned I wasn't keen on doing it - I didn't imagine it would be much fun and worse, I imagined I'd be totally crap at it. I hate doing stuff that I'm crap at, especially if it's no fun. However...

...it was one of the most fun things I've done in ages! The circuit was indoors and not what you'd call huge, but there were a fair few cars on the track and lots of opportunity to "do a bit of racing". What's more, I turned out to be not as crap at it as I thought I'd be, in fact me and my (racing) partner, Julie, were the top pairing from our company!

The after effects of the Karting were felt for a long time. My arms and shoulders killed me from the constant turning of the heavy steering and the kick-back through the steering that certain parts of the circuit gave. My back ached too, that bucket seat with a bolt sticking out of it is not the most comfortable place to sit. It was well into my holiday before all my aches and pains seemed to go.

If you ever get the chance, go karting, it's great fun.