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I’m still not quite sure what made her keen, but Bec decided to make bread the other night to go with tea. Which was pretty good thinking really, as it became pretty much the whole of our tea that night…

And as we’re pretty keen to find anything interesting to write about for the blog that actually doesn’t need much in the way of deep comment we made sure we kept a photo diary of the event.

Luckily for you, dear reader, we’ve skipped the boring bits, like bowls of dough sitting around for ages in the hot water cupboard getting nice and fat.  The first “exciting” bit was after there had been 3 lots of dough rolled out that had to be filled with a whole lot of cooked red onions. A lot of onions. And we didn’t even use as many as it appeared the recipe called for.  And I’ll digress here for a moment, if I may.  If a recipe calls for 750gms of onions, peeled and finely chopped, does the 750gms relate to the inital unpeeled weight, or the final chopped amount?  It’s confusing.  And not very helpful. Hmm.

Anyway, here’s the spreading happening…

And how it all looked when we’d finally worked out how to plait them together.  Bec seems to be able to plait her hair behind her without thinking about it, but plaiting in front of you (with massive bits of dough, I agree) seemed to be a bit more confusing…

A bit more sitting around rising time later, and it was into the oven.  Then out again, looking pretty good.

And after almost enough cooling time, into out tummies did it go.  Not too bad. A little doughy, I give it a 7/10. But as it was the first baking in this oven,  I think we can be reasonably happy with it.

A couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to continue following the tour we started in Edinburgh and got tickets to go to the NZ vs. England game at Twickenham (once again through Bec’s boss at work – thanks Tim).

We meet up with him just before the game, and as suspected our seats were in the “English supporters'” part of the ground.  So here we were again two little ole kiwi’s amongst a lot of English, and when we were scoring tries we had to be a bit more reserved than usual (well Bec has to contain herself).  The game was interesting, it took the AB’s awhile to get going, but then perhaps they were just waiting for the English to make mistakes – which seemed to work.

It was bloody cold in the 2nd half as the sun went down and it started to rain (how we forgot to take our hat and gloves, I’m not sure).  And of course we had a pint or two of Guinness whilst we were there. It seems to be a bit of regular thing when we go to Twickenham.

After the game as the crowds leaving were massive, and we thought it would be a fair while before we could get a train, we had a nice night walk down the Thames to Richmond, made all the more pleasant by stopping at a pub for a warming drink on the way.

It was another good day out. (And we won the rugby!)

Another little tech chore that I’ve not got around to for far too long has been completed.  The server can now send you an email to help you reset your password for the blog if you’ve forgotten it.

Of course you still have to remember the username and email that you used when you first registered, but if your memory’s like mine and you can’t even remember that, let me know and I can reset it for you.

I guess now we’ll just have to write some posts that are actually worth commenting on!

Well, the horror of it all has just about receded into the past enough for me to think about writing something about the move we made a month or two ago. Just about!

As you’ll remember, the state of our landlords mortgage affairs led us to have to vacate the old flat so that we could feel like we could sleep peacefully without bailiffs knocking on the door in the middle of the night telling us to get out. Or worse, turning up during the day while we were out and taking all our stuff assuming that it was his… So we looked for a few flats around town, but in the end we decided to take one just across the road from where we were. This was partly because we’ve gotten to know this area now, but partly because I thought it would make it an easier shift. We wouldn’t have to make sure we had everything packed up at one time for a truck to come and take it all, and could take our time walking things across from one place to the other. (Bec says – But to be honest I think because we had so little to go the not packing properly makes it even harder when moving.  Who would’ve thought it would take so much time to walk just across a road to shift).

And that was pretty much the whole weekend. Walking loads of stuff from one apartment block to the other. Back and forward and back and forward and sit down for a minute and back and forward etc, etc, etc.

Whew! I feel tired again just thinking about it!

I started off keeping track of how many trips, boxes, etc that we’d brought over, but by about the fifth trip that had started to wear a bit thin, and we just put our heads down and did a few more. So I’ve really no idea how many trips and how much stuff we moved.

We did meet a couple of neighbours going up in the lift for another load on Sunday in the old flat that had obviously been watching us all weekend and were quite impressed/amused by the whole ordeal. Glad we could entertain someone!

The star of the whole ordeal was a little sack trolley we borrowed off a friend of Bec’s. We did also borrow another one from the concierge from the old place, and a furniture delivery guy that was briefly loitering outside the new place for a few loads here and there, but the one below was the constant companion. It must have looked a bit funny to casual observers. I’d be carrying over some awkward stuff, while Bec would be driving the cart over with a stack of boxes that was almost as high as she was! It was easier for both of us that way, honest!

Glad it’s all over though! Hopefully for a good long while! I still think it was easier to do it this way than pack it all up at once, but if we had to do it again I think I’d pay a couple of guys to come and do a lot of the walking to and fro for us while we tried to look busy packing stuff up ready for the next loads…

A few weekends ago (actually must be just about a month ago now), we decided to go to Scotland to watch the All Blacks game. The atmosphere at Murrayfield is just fantastic, the only problem was as I had got the tickets through work we were sitting in the Scottish supporters’ area. But on a good note the game wasn’t sold out so we had plenty of room, and the All Black reserves were sitting about 10 rows in front of us (I was tempted to fall into them on my way to the toilet….. but was too shy).

The ceremonies before the game were great, I think my favourite was all the lights blacked out and the bag pipe band playing, then followed by the haka.

From memory we enjoyed the game itself and then the walk back into town with all the rugby fans (it is great to look ahead and there is just a sea of people everywhere – poor people trying to drive anywhere, but then what were they thinking?!), to go for a few drinks in a pub in the city.

The next day was poppy day (we pinned ours to our wooly hats) and an absolutely stunning day. Well the sun was shinning, but it was bloody cold!!! But we had a really nice time wandering through the city and seeing the sights.

(I’m sure one day this is just going to take off! – Mike)

Our legs did get a bit heavy though! We’re really not used to hills in London, so never seeming to stand on a flat bit of road all day took its toll!

Then at the airport we were joined by the All Blacks and I must say I was suprised how small they were when they are stanging just a few feet away from you (I am not so sure why I thought they were giants before, perhaps it is all the padding they wear at the game).

All in all it was a nice wee break away. (And we won the rugby!!).

Right, so we’re going to have to ease into this blogging thing again, so let’s start with something easy.

Meet our plant!

Ok, so on first look it’s not that exciting. But for us it’s become a bit of a clock. When we inherited it from someone’s flat a few years ago we called it “the stick”.  It only had about 2 or 3 leaves, and looked pretty darn sad.  And it stayed that way for quite a few years. Over the last few, though, it’s gradually got more and more and more leaves and now looks pretty much like a real plant.

And this year there was a big surprise.  It flowered! A big, strange, collection of flower type things popped out the top, sat around for a while, and then fell off.  And then another one appeared!

The second one’s almost ready to fall off now by the look of it, and a new leaf has already appeared.

No idea what type of plant it is though. Must look out for one at a garden centre or somewhere to work that out…

Hiya again.

Yes, we’re back on the air again now.  Apologies for the delay.  We would have been back sooner but the UPS for the server decided that it was going to sulk as we’d moved so I had to wait until a replacement arrived.  That was over a week ago now, so the only thing that’s been holding me back was the thought that as soon as the blog was back up everyone would want to see some actual news!

There have been a few things that have gone on, including the move itself, so we’ll try to get motivated and tap some up in the next few, errrr, weeks?…

Anyway, welcome back!

Yup, we liked the chutney so much that we decided to make some more last weekend.  And it helped to use up some of the veges still in the fridge….

We’ve almost chomped through the first one now anyway, and by the time this one’s brewed up properly we’ll be ready for it!

Yum!

I seem to have come across some stupid people lately (including our landlord, of course), but today I found a new one…

The last thing you want to move when you’re shifting flats is stuff you don’t need to.  Especially when it weighs a bit and you’ll just have to get rid of it after moving. So, as Bec was out at leaving dos, and as I has a whole heap of other coins to take to the bank to be transferred to light, paper money I thought I’d empty out the piggy bank that we’ve been using to hold the bedroom door open when we’ve wanted a bit of air through and bag it up

WHO IS THE IDIOT THAT THOUGHT THAT JUST BECAUSE Y0U PUT MONEY IN A PIGGY BANK YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO GET IT OUT AGAIN!!!!

AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

About an hour struggling to peer through the wee slit with a blunt knife in hand,  I finally managed to get it all out.  If it wasn’t for Bec’s old habit of saving all the £2  coins she was ever given, I would have given up after about 5 minutes! And if it had gone on for about another 10 minutes longer I might have “accidentally” dropped it on a large, heavy hammer….

Megan, are you reading this?!  I think it’s all your fault really as I seem to recall we inherited this from you when you bailed leaving all your 2p coins behind!

I can see why now!

But at least that’s a little but less  weight to transfer to the new place. Assuming I can be bothered to take it to the bank before then!

We had a spectacularly bad experience last night with a new recipe.  Somehow we managed to turn some rice noodles into an almost inedible mess, so we were searching for other things to fill us up for the evening. There’s not much instant food in this house at the best of times, but there’s even less now we’re trying to empty the cupboards pre-move.  But we remembered the chutney that has been brewing in the back of the fridge that we mentioned in a earlier post.

MMMMmmmmm! Good!  Especially with a nice bit of mature cheddar on some cold toast (we’re almost out of crackers too!) We liked it a lot, and we’ll definitely keep it in mind for any more courgettes that are going to go to waste in the fridge!

No photos, as we were so desperate for food that we just pigged out!  Luckily there’s a bit more to go…