Supagran

I am sorry I've been awol, but I have so much going on and my quest to win the Kleine Zalze For The Love of Wine competition has been all encompassing. I have no idea how people manage to run multiple blogs, I certainly can't. 

I'm finding it quite hard to keep churning out daily posts that have to have some relevance to wine, but I've done my best, although I adore food & wine I prefer to be able to blog about anything and everything.

Hopefully I will be able to blog normally again soon.........I heard that chirp about not being normal!

I just thought I would show you something I did the other day, I bought these foodie rings in the UK and I had to give them a go......

So as I had some prawns lurking in the freezer I decided to do a Gary Rhodes recipe for Prawn Cocktail, the onion sprouts on the top were my idea, but I think they came out really well.

It's a bit chefy I know, but I don't care!

As you all know, I love my wine and it must be cold and have ice in it, the poms aren't good with ice (they've forgotten the recipe) and they have this terrible tendency to drink luke-warm beer and soft drinks. Thus I sent various reminders to my parents before I left South Africa for them to not only stock up on wine, but to make lots of ice as well.

Now, it transpires that my mother has not been taking her medication (bear with me, this does have relevance your honour!) the NHS (National Health Service) picked up on this and they now deliver her pills to her door in these snazzy pill boxes.

Now that's what I call service, anyway my parents are cunning folk, ingenious even.

They found an excellent use for the empty pill boxes......

My parentals are brilliant, I had a daily reminder to have some wine with my ice........as if I'd forget!

Just a quick post to say hi, I had a wonderful weekend with the youngsters in London, they really looked after me and I had a great time.

I was fortunate on the flight back to once again be in the two-seat configuration all by myself, so I managed to get some sleep but I am so ready for my own bed.

I have returned to a major change in our lives, nothing bad, quite the reverse, but I may be scarce for a while longer, I also have a huge pile of work to catch up on.

I just want to say that it's wonderful to be home.

This morning we said farewell to our old friends, tomorrow I head for London to stay with the daughters of my late friend Elsie, and then it's back home.

Yesterday we took a walk around the village.....

The Church.

The Railway Station.

The Windmill.

The windmill is the only 8 sailed mill in England.

In my last post I put up a picture of G & J when they were kids, we couldn't find a log, but we made do with a small wall.

It was really great seeing them after such a long time.

My Dad has a friend he's known since he was 17 and they were in The Army Apprentice School in Harrogate, Yorkshire. They lost touch when my parents were living in South Africa but when they returned to England my Dad managed to contact him and they picked up from where they left off.

In the sixties I remember visiting the family in Blackburn and each year we would receive a Christmas card from them, every card had a picture of the children G & J. I always thought it was a very posh thing to do. Tomorrow Sandy, his wife and G & J are coming to visit for a couple of days. G lives in America and J lives in New Zealand, it's been over 40 years since we have all been together, I think it's going to be fun!

Guess what? my mother has still got the damn cards!

G & J please note that I picked the least cringe-worthy photo, although I was very tempted to show the one of J in his naff bow tie! 

My mother's home town is Harrogate in Yorkshire, we went there to visit my aunt & uncle who now live in my grandmother's old house. Grandma is now in a home, we went to see her but sadly she didn't really know who we were, she is 98 years old. This is the house where I fell through the ceiling boards when playing in the attic, is it also where we used to have proper Sunday teas, there were so many of us we were fed in shifts, my Mum is the oldest of seven children.

I took a walk through the town with my Mum, it really is a pretty, well kept place.

Betty's Tea Rooms has been going for 90 years, they are quite renowned and if you look carefully you can see the people queuing to get in. My mother remembers standing in a long queue for hours in the war years, to buy 6 cream cakes for a treat on the weekends.

Some of you may recall that I posted a photo of my Mum some time ago, that photo was taken at a dance at this hotel, The Alexandra.

Pub lunch anyone?

Finally a picture of the Odeon, where I used to go to the Saturday morning pictures (English speak for movies) my grandma would give us each sixpence, 3p to get in and 3p for an ice-cream. The outside looks the same as it did all those years ago.

I am loving the markets here, the fresh produce is varied and such good quality.

How big is that onion?!

Anyone care to hazard a guess what these are below?

As I mentioned yesterday we went to Melton Mowbray to see a pork pie demonstration, it was also market day and the place was teeming with people.

The young lady who did the demo, she is holding what they call a wooden dolly which she uses to shape the pie crust.

Here you can see her working the pastry up the outside of the dolly. They make an average of 4000 pies a day, but in the week before Christmas they sold 32000! It takes 4 days to make a pork pie and the jelly is made from pigs trotters.

Her finished pork pie.

The pork pie we bought

About to eat the pork pie, it was delicious, crisp pastry and really tasty pork filling. Yum Yum!

Especially for Madmom, a photo of my parents wheelie bins!

I was in raptures this morning in Melton Mowbray this morning......

At the market there was a man selling these, I think just about every geriatric has one, they are everywhere! Shopping in the supermarket is downright dangerous they charge around like they are at Kyalami! 

Today we went out to get Mom's laptop sorted out and on the way back decided to stop at a pub that had been recommended for lunch.

I had to have Fish & Chips with mushy peas, it was really lovely, nice crisp batter and melt-in-the-mouth fish. As you can see the weather is lovely today.

The photo doesn't do it justice.

Tomorrow we are off to Melton Mowberry to see how pork pies are made, I'm looking forward to that.