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Tuesday 1st June 2010
Centre for Alternative Technology
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Wednesday 2nd June 2010
Along the Mawddach Trail
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Thursday 3rd June 2010
Harlech Castle . . . haven't we been here before?
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Friday 4th June 2010
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Saturday 5th June 2010
Chirk (?!) Castle?!
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Tuesday 8th June 2010
R******'s birthday
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Ah yes, I remember. We took R****** out on the train at Lakeside/Haverthwaite. On the way back, we had lunch at this freakily posh hotel/restaurant thing. Good food, but bloody expensive.
    
And today we had one of those classic I-thought-you-had-packed-the-bag moments. Meaning, neither of us packed the bag; this is the bag containing R******'s nappies, wipes, toys . . . oh, and the camera, drinks and various other bits and pieces. So, fairly important. But we managed fine without. Later on that day, as the pictures show, we had dinner for R****** and all his cousins.
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Thursday 24th June 2010
I think this is how you make a chilli sauce . . .
 So Lucy and Gen were over recently . . . Lucy mentioned she had a bag of Scotch Bonnets that were 'on the turn'. Lucy was like, "But you could probably make a sauce out of them, or use the seeds . . . or something," so that sounded good. So . . . tonight I took this recipe but changed it ever so slightly. 1 small onion (chopped) - check! Two cloves of garlic - check! 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil . . . well, erm . . . olive will do, yeah? 1 cup of chopped carrots . . . hmmmm. Now, at this point, it started to go a bit wrong. I mean, how many carrots is 1 cup of chopped carrots? To cut a long story short, the answer is about one and a half but I went with three small carrots instead. 2 cups of water? Well, again, what is a cup? Is that like a tea-cup or something? I have mugs, coffee mugs, but I think they're much bigger than cups. What is a cup? What is a cup? So . . . I put 'some' water in. That water all boiled dry, leaving the carrots decidedly uncooked, so I added some more . . . and then some more carrots, what the hell? 4 Scotch Bonnet Habanero peppers. What?! Which is it? Scotch Bonnet or Habanero?! Two of each? Three of one? One of the other? Hello?! Craziness. Confused, I used 6 Scotch Bonnets. Not least because I didn't have any habaneros. The habaneros haven't even flowered yet, poor things. 3 tablespoons of lime juice. Who the hell has three tablespoons of lime juice just like hanging around? Occasionally I have some whole limes when I've got the urge for gin and tonics, but they never stay for long . . . always ending up thoroughly squeezed in the bottom of a glass, and thence to the composter. So, instead I squeezed the life out of a Jif lemon thing. Can't have been more than 2 tablespoons, but what the hell? Who's checking? 3 tablespoons of white vinegar. Is that like distilled vinegar? If so, I got that. Not a problem. 1 teaspoon of salt - check! And then I followed the recipe (what about the garlic?! Okay, so just add it to the onions, a couple minutes after), went to hang the washing out, came back in and the stuff had boiled dry. I think I already mentioned this. Anyway . . . long story short . . . liquidiser . . . blah, blah, blah . . . sterilised glass jar (done in boiling water) . . . and I end up with a fantastic chilli sauce. Very spicy, quite sweet (presumably from the carrots and, to a lesser extend, the lemon juice?!), but very nice. That should keep me going for a few months. THANKS, LUCY!!!
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Saturday 26th June 2010
Ambleside with no rain!
      
These are strange times (maybe they are but the following isn't indicative of that) when you can drive through the outskirts of Ambleside, past Windermere, and spy a council worker watering some flower beds. But as the photos attest, it was a gloriously warm, sunny day in Ambleside for once. We were there to see Nanna-and-Grandpa-on-the-hill, as they're known by A****** and R******. I don't like to remember the last time I was here. That would have been March. Today was a good day, though.
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So Lucy and Gen were over recently . . . Lucy mentioned she had a bag of Scotch Bonnets that were 'on the turn'. Lucy was like, "But you could probably make a sauce out of them, or use the seeds . . . or something," so that sounded good. So . . . tonight I took this recipe but changed it ever so slightly. 1 small onion (chopped) - check! Two cloves of garlic - check! 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil . . . well, erm . . . olive will do, yeah? 1 cup of chopped carrots . . . hmmmm. Now, at this point, it started to go a bit wrong. I mean, how many carrots is 1 cup of chopped carrots? To cut a long story short, the answer is about one and a half but I went with three small carrots instead. 2 cups of water? Well, again, what is a cup? Is that like a tea-cup or something? I have mugs, coffee mugs, but I think they're much bigger than cups. What is a cup? What is a cup? So . . . I put 'some' water in. That water all boiled dry, leaving the carrots decidedly uncooked, so I added some more . . . and then some more carrots, what the hell? 4 Scotch Bonnet Habanero peppers. What?! Which is it? Scotch Bonnet or Habanero?! Two of each? Three of one? One of the other? Hello?! Craziness. Confused, I used 6 Scotch Bonnets. Not least because I didn't have any habaneros. The habaneros haven't even flowered yet, poor things. 3 tablespoons of lime juice. Who the hell has three tablespoons of lime juice just like hanging around? Occasionally I have some whole limes when I've got the urge for gin and tonics, but they never stay for long . . . always ending up thoroughly squeezed in the bottom of a glass, and thence to the composter. So, instead I squeezed the life out of a Jif lemon thing. Can't have been more than 2 tablespoons, but what the hell? Who's checking? 3 tablespoons of white vinegar. Is that like distilled vinegar? If so, I got that. Not a problem. 1 teaspoon of salt - check! And then I followed the recipe (what about the garlic?! Okay, so just add it to the onions, a couple minutes after), went to hang the washing out, came back in and the stuff had boiled dry. I think I already mentioned this. Anyway . . . long story short . . . liquidiser . . . blah, blah, blah . . . sterilised glass jar (done in boiling water) . . . and I end up with a fantastic chilli sauce. Very spicy, quite sweet (presumably from the carrots and, to a lesser extend, the lemon juice?!), but very nice. That should keep me going for a few months. THANKS, LUCY!!!
