Well the past weekend and start o the week has been a mixture of enjoyment and spoon sapping activity. Of course Saturday was a fine balance of women’s word cup rugby and getting to hotel where I and my partner where staying in order to participate in a Murder Mystery. We managed to see the third place game and then pack the car and get to the hotel with fifteen minutes to spare before the final. Thankfully the result came out with the right result for the cowboy hat makers.
Having celebrated the England win it was into the smart casual gear to attend the murder mystery. In sorting out smart casual I was plunged into despair when I found ALL my smart casual trousers do not fit me anymore! I had already moved from a 36 inch waste to a 38 inch waste. None of these fit me now! I am left with a pair of jeans and two pairs of shorts, a couple of hippy draw string casuals. What this means is I am going to have to go shopping and actually try on trousers otherwise I will have to turn down invitations to events and of course funerals, weddings and christenings. I settle on the cargo jeans but to add a bit of class I wear a lovely pair of black brogues and an up market Dickies work shirt, very trendy.
My partner and I find ourselves on table 15 with six other people. There is the usual introductions and then we were off on the murder mystery, four people playing five roles between courses. People were conscripted to play small roles and clues could be bought, sold or traded, with or without chicanery. At the end all was revealed and prizes given. Our team did get the perpetrator right, it was the undertaker with a gun in the bed room. Our limerick also got read out but no prizes. By the end of the evening I was knackered and was pleased to get to bed and sleep reasonably well.
Sunday morning saw good weather and a slow drift down to breakfast in the Orangery . Part way through the full English my partner spots Sandi Toksvig at another table. Of course we did the “is it or isn’t it” oogle and decided it was. Breakfast over we got the car packed and I drove us home. In the afternoon I watched a couple of rugby games and became aware how much I was craving sweet stuff and the need to eat. I figured this was driven by the steroids as it is common side effect and drives weight gain. As a compromise I dug out a box of bread sticks and nibbled some of them.
The evening was creeping up and I found myself watching The Sound of Music! The disturbing part was I got into it to such an extent that when dinner was called I ignored it and ended up with my bowl of pasta seeing me through the Von Trapp family escape to Switzerland. The rest of the evening is taken up with the House of Guinness before meds and bed.
Monday rocks up and it is to be a busy day. I have breakfast and my meds and then spend quite a lot of time drawing up the shopping list for the evenings dinner with friends. We are going to have freshly made smoked salmon pate followed by lamb shanks and finish with poach pears in red wine and spices. naturally cheese, biscuits, coffee and mints to follow. So with shopping list in hand my partner and I drive to the super market. As we get out of the car we come across an argument between a young woman, who is taking phone pictures of a car that she claims has scratched her car and an older man. The old man was foul mouthing her and denying he had done anything. It was at the point he called her a “silly little girl” that but my partner and I stepped i. we had no idea whether the man had or had not scraped the car but no way was he getting away with abusing and bullying this young woman. We asked if she was okay as she was clearly upset by the denial and the abuse. We asked if she had all the information she needed for her insurance company, which she said she had so we advised to just get in her car and leave, which she did as the man continued to abuse her. I hate it when men think they can bully women into submission like this guy was trying to do. Bastard. My partner and I walk off to shop leaving the man complaining to a couple of women who had wander across. the shopping went well and we were soon back home unloading the goodies.
My partner went off to garden and knit while I went into chef mode. Its all about timing, tings always take longer than the recipe says it will, especially the preparation part. I started with smoked salmon pate once I had cleared the kitchen. No actual cooking required just popping the ingredients in a blender and getting it all to the right consistency and then it the fridge. The heavy chefing came with the prep for the lamb shanks, preparing the sauce that the shanks were to be cooked, but wit a bit of fiddling I get them into the oven to bubble away dead in time. The decks cleared it was time to turn to the poached pears. Because these can be eaten warm or at room temperature it allows altitude in the timing. I soon have them poaching in the spicy liquor of red wine sugar, cloves, cinnamon stick and blackberries. With the potatoes ready to be cooked for mustard mash it was time to clear the kitchen while my partner set the table and sorted out the cheese board. At last the kitchen was ready to final prep and dishing up with about twenty minutes to spare before the guests were due to arrive. I changed my sauce splashed shirt and had a short break.
The guests arrive and we are all soon tucking into the food and chatting merrily about how we are and what we have been reading and doing. All the food goes down well but it is noticed that I omit the ice cream with my poached pear and do not have any of the post meal mints. There is brief conversation about where my cancer is and the addition of steroids, it prompts my to give them a cop of the anthology. I also note that one of the guests makes reference to an enlarged prostate, but I do not pursue it. I am not sure why, perhaps the site of two oldish blokes discussing prostates was not thought a good experience for the other diners.
The meal comes to an end and the guests say farewell to us, including my eldest daughter who had returned from her art class in time for the left over olives and after eight mints. I am wiped out and my back is aching big time, I try to help clear up but all I am good for is taking my meds and getting to bed. My back is very painful and I think about more paracetamol but I resist and do eventually get to sleep.
Tuesday and my partner is up and getting ready to go to the physio and then onto “bobbing about it the water”. I take my vitals, which are good, and then get up to an empty house. Breakfast and my meds+ steroids goes down okay and then I spend the morning catching up with the blog. I stop only to measure my waist in anticipation f trouser shopping. I am appalled by the result, which I am too embarrassed to share. I immediately give the idea of going shopping and get onto the M&S website and order some trousers in my new voluminous size. I really hope they do not fit but I have a nasty feeling they will. I then continue drafting the blog until I am up to date at which point I start on my mental list of light bulbs that need to be changed.
After attending to my ears, I am three days into a four day ear wax demolition project, which I took up after people kept telling me the TV was too loud and am I deaf, I set abut becoming the light fairy. There are a couple need changing, which I do, I then turn into the toilet roll fairy and top up the reserve bins. With the internal chores done I turn my attention to the block paving and set to work de-weeding and de-mossing the front and side areas. I am lazy at this an resort to a chemical weed killer that I have tried an tested before to good effect. It is a tedious job but a necessary one if the new frontage of the house is not going to turn in to a slippery slop. I have ordered road salt for the winter to make sure the frontage does not turn into an ice rink come the cold and snow. It is also a good way to kill weeds. With that over I return to my laptop to draft the blog and settle down for an evening of football and the House of Guinness before meds and bed. This is my fifth day of of no sweets, biscuits and treats so I feel my non specific grumpiness syndrome (NSGS), rearing its ugly head soon. Tomorrow I’m having my nails done and may well find myself sporting a Halloween ghost.
