Severalplums

I cooked a big breakfast this morning: chipolata sausages, bacon, black pudding, mushrooms, grilled tomato, fried egg. The meat products all came from our local butcher, and were so tasty it was hard to decide which should be my final mouthful*

Why the big breakfast? Beast is off—just now, in fact—for a concert this afternoon, so he won't need to be fed until the nice people who invited his chorus ply them with cake.


* I like to eat 'rotational', ie mouthfuls by turns, but make sure to save a tasty morsel for the last bite. Beast eats in a columnar style, devouring what's on his plate from least favourite to tastiest by eating all of each ingredient before moving on to the next. I suppose a case could also be made for eating in the same way but starting with the favourite.

Which way do you eat a plateful?

What *is* it with Americans and mashed potato? I read this morning about THREE weddings that had "a mashed potato bar". One of them involved three different colours of potato (white, sweet, and purple) served in martini glasses, with a choice of toppings. It's mashed potato. I mean... what is the allure?

I fear that if I turned up at a wedding reception and discovered a mashed potato bar, I would be baffled rather than impressed, and if there were 'cocktails' of mashed potato I would assume somebody was demented.

*

BIL's birthday yesterday, we had a guided tour around the city, and by 'we' I mean Beast, BIL, Boy, Bun and Bun's Chap, plus six of Beast/BIL's cousins who'd come over to Norwich for the weekend. Today they are all coming here for lunch. I shall be peeling things in a very few minutes.

The tour was very interesting, although it would have been good to see a few more Interesting Bits and have the talking in smaller lumps, as it did mean standing in place for a while every time we stopped. Still, there is a lot of history in Norwich, and our guide told his stories well. I have now felt the nipple in the flint wall (for good luck)(it's a thing, apparently), and learned about how Sir Thomas Erpingham got away with murder, or at least manslaughter, and how a sixteen-year-old girl held off an army with only forty-two men-at-arms. What a hyphen-heavy clause that was. And many other things besides, which I shall no doubt forget.

Afterwards we went to Biddy's Tea Rooms for cuppas and cakes/scones, and had a jolly good chat.

You know, I have composed so many DW posts in my head, and totally failed to follow through by posting here. I actually fell off DW for a few hours as I didn't manage to renew in a timely fashion. But I am still here!

Things are very busy at the moment. Beast and I spent a week travelling south and west, first to see my sister in Devon, then to Convention in Bournemouth, then to Oxford to see my bro, then home. My cat was greatly relieved to have the Imposter Humans gone—our housesitters. Ungrateful cat.

The visit south comes with a Public Service Warning: if you drive an electric car, it may have 'acoustic foam' in the tyres, and this foam may come loose and make you feel as though the car will shake itself into oblivion, or the axles will come off, or something. We had a very long day, is all I will say about it!

But Devon is very pretty, sister's house is lovely, and we visited a honey farm which was a lovely way to spend a reasonably sunny afternoon.

Convention had its moments, including my chorus winning the award for best in division—which we had sorta anticipated, being as how we were the only ones in the division. But our score was disappointing, as it went down quite a lot. I was honestly expecting an improvement. Oh well.

I was trying to think how long it is since I've seen my brother, and it might well be ten years, absurd as he really doesn't live that far away, but somehow... Well, he is in fine form, and even cooked lunch for us on Monday.

And now I'm back and looking to the next thing, which is my BIL's birthday event (this coming weekend), which will involve me cooking a mighty meal for about a dozen people, and us also doing a walking tour of the city. I hope the rain lets up for that, though I am glad it has been raining a bit. There are beans and peas growing in the garden. And kale! And cauliflowers! And courgettes! So far, anyway. I'm sure they were glad of the sprinkle.