…and we’re back

This was supposed to go up yesterday, but for some reason it didn’t, so it’s a little out of sequence….but I’m sure you’ll work it out!

I am writing up a blow-by-blow of the Great Expedition of  ’2010 to Jhb and Top Gear Live but you know what it’s like when you take leave and go away for a few days. Work implodes that’s what. 350 emails to plough through…Boss to reassure that I haven’t become incapable of doing my job, etc. etc. etc.

For now though, let me just say that it is good to be home. We had chicken wraps last night, slobbed out on the couch and watch Spooks while being cuddled by our cats. Well, I say cuddled, more like they deigned to be in the same room as us. I am going with ‘it’s hot’ to explain that!

Tonight we have Girls Night at our place (J will be off at Quiz Night) and Sophie is making us her amazing chicken with apple and raisins dish (it has a fancy French name that I don’t remember) and we will have wine and chocolate and bitch about our jobs/bosses/supervisors/boyfriends/husbands etc as all good girlfriends do.

So yes, we had a great time, I’ll put up the post with photos just as soon as I can! For now…check out the sunset when we got home!

Sunset from home

 

Yum!

Yesterday was a frustrating day. You know those days where nothing seems to go your way? and you work you butt off all day only be back where you started at 5pm? yeah. That was yesterday. Anyway, I hosted Girls night last night. I am so thrilled to be able to do that, because for the last 2 years, there were only 2 ladies in our group whole could host regularly. I love having everyone round to us. It also helped that Nosinda, out lovely cleaning lady came yesterday, and the house looked amazing!

We had a delicious chicken in coconut with apples dish last night. But first, because it was stinking hot yesterday, (41C) we sat around for a while drinking wine that had been chilled in the deep freeze  before tackling Sophie’s delicious meal. She had made it for us once before, and we al all individually tried to replicate it; but no luck. It must be a French thing! I’ve made a note below of the recipe, but your results may vary.

Other than that, the heat yesterday was pretty unbearable. It stayed above 30C until after midnight,  slept on top of the bed with a wet towel draped over me….and it’s already 30C this morning and due to get hotter. I hope it’ll rain tonight or tomorrow…fingers crossed!

I’m planning a yummy Valentine’s Day supper…simple yet yummy! J and I aren’t much into the whole, buy flowers and chocolate and cards and other kitsch crap for Valentine’s Day. In fact, I’ve only ever received one genuine Valentine’s day card (and I still think of that person around this time every year). But I am a bit of a romantic soppy sentimentalist at heart, so I do believe in doing something out of the ordinary on that day. I believe that Valentines’ Day is a special day, but it shouldn’t be the ONLY special day. So, J and I will crack open one of our ‘good’ bottles of wine, and we’ll probably sit down to a fondue, pig out on yummy treats with delicious dipping sauces and hang out with each other with the TV or movies or anything. What do you do for Valentine’s Day?

But for now, it’s back to running in circles! Who knows, perhaps today we’ll have a break through?

Sophie’s Chicken with Apple and Coconut (Serves 4-5)

2 large skinless, boneless chicken breasts, chopped

1 onion finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 cup hot water with 1 chicken stock cube dissolved (or your own stock if you make it!)

1 tin coconut milk (~330ml)

1 apple, peeled and chopped (Granny Smith works best)

1 smallish handful raisins

3-4cm piece root ginger, peeled and grated.

Desiccated coconut, chives and another chopped apple* to garnish.

1. In a deep frying pan, fry the onions in a little olive oil until browned. Remove from pan and set aside
2. Add the chicken breasts and fry until they are no longer pink, but are not yet too brown.
3. Add the garlic and fry a little with the chicken (about 1min).
4. Add the chicken stock, chopped apple, raisins, ginger, and coconut milk and stir to heat through.
5. When it starts to bubble add the onions back in and reduce the heat to a simmer for about 15mins. Season with salt and pepper to taste. The sauce will thicken and be delicious!.
6. Serve with rice/couscous and a nice green side salad. Sprinkle some desiccated coconut, chopped chives and fresh chopped apple as a garnish.

*If you toss your apple pieces in lemon juice, they won’t go brown.

 

This morning was not a good start

J usually gets up first, goes through to the kitchen and pours us our coffee. I loll in bed pressing the snooze button my phone until about 6am when I finally get up and shuffle to the loo. This morning, I had carefully squared my phone on the bedside table so I could roll over and press snooze without opening my eyes. However, unbeknown to me, because I was still dreaming about something or other, J had moved my phone over to put the nice full mug of hot coffee on the bedside table. So, you know what happened don’t you? Phone beeped to wake me from my dreams, I roll over and reach for it, only to find it has morphed overnight into a hot mug of coffee. Which I knock over. Which floods not only my phone, but also my camera which was next to the bed because I had shown J the photos of the walk I went on on Sunday. So. The phone, she is dead. Which is Ok, because I’m upgrading in March anyway and I can use the ancient one we have lying around spare. I’m drying it anyway because unfortunately, all mu numbers on one the phone not the sim. Stupid phone. The camera however…hmmm. I have it in the hot hot sun drying out. It’ll sit on the dashboard of the car on the way to Jhb tomorrow to dry out further. And fingers crossed, it’ll be ok. Shame poor, J, I took it out on him until I woke up & became rational. Sorry Skattie.

*@#&! I was irritated this morning.

On top of all that, I didn’t sleep well because my back had decided that 2:17pm yesterday afternoon was a good time to decide to be all “Bitch” and stop co-operating with me on basic thinks like, standing up, or sitting down. Myprodol and I have become good friends.

And I forgot the cable to connect the GPS to the computer so I can’t get the Geocaches I wanted to download.

Ok, enough with the wallowing in self-pity like a warthog at a particularly sloppy mud hole

There are two bright rays of shining light for me today. One is that the Boss is not in today; so when I stop faffing here, I can go get some work done! The second is that I am only working till 4 today, so that I can go get padkos (direct translation from Afrikaans is ‘road food’ i.e. snacks for the car) and new sunglasses (mine broke on Monday).

Dinner last night was absolutely fantastic. So good, in fact, that I am seriously considering buying Julia Child’s cook books. Not that French food is particularly my thing; but wow. Jackie did an amazing job of the bouef bouiguignon (and Sophie who is actually French and therefore has had the real-deal made by her wizened*  Grandmother and therefore Had Expectations, tried valiantly to teach us the correct pronunciation). Seriously, wow. I was blown away. I had seconds…I stole carrots from the leftovers…I may even have drooled a little. The Carlitzdorp Rose that I had with it was also fabulous. So all in all a great evening (even if things did get a little heated around the topic of salaries and unfair promotions and so on-money talk should stay was from polite company. it can go sit with religion and politics in the naughty corner). Best of all, I didn’t blow my calorie count totally out of the water: 1752 (I’m aiming for between 1500 and 1700 cal/day)

J and I will probably be heading to Bella Vita for lunch today. Yum. I went yesterday by myself-he had a departmental lunch. It was nice, sitting with my book and delicious cajan chicken salad.

Tonight, couscous with chicken breasts and whatever-is-in-the-fridge-that-needs-to-be-used. And Myprodol. Probably.

* I have no idea if Sophie’s Grandmother is wizened or not. But I feel that she probably should be. Or not. She is French after all. She probably is 85 and looks like Grace Kelly…

 

I have a sewing machine

My dear deported friend, that’s deported-not departed, was giving away her sewing machine because she can’t take it with her when the British Government allow her back into the UK. So I snagged it. I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but I hope I’ll get a chance soon. I have an old skirt that I want to turn into cushion covers eventually.

I had a nice quiet drink with Jayne and Kim after work. Just what I needed to relax and wind down after a long day. I was in such a bad mood and I have no idea why. Those ladies really cheered me up!

Supper last night was also good. Mushroom and ham pasta. And I was famished! It’s amazing how good stuff tastes when you are hungry!

Work yesterday was productive, I managed to get some critical stuff done and out the way. The rest of it  is being done today.

We had our new cleaning lady come today. So far she seems great. It’s always much nicer to get an older lady as they tend not to be too unreliable! Nosinda is her name and I really like her so far.

Tonight we are off to Jackie’s house for Bouef Bourguignon (or however it is spelt!). An impressive looking recipe that I would LOVE to attempt once we get our new stove (whenever that may be!) I’m getting a little frustrated not being able to bake or roast anything.

Blah…lack on inspiration today. Enough with the drivel…come back tomorrow when it’s worth reading…

 

I need a weekend to recover from my weekend!

The potjie on Friday went off very well!! I managed to have th rice ready at the same time as the rest of the food and the pot-bread  that John made was delicious! My two puddings also went down well, even though I think I added too many eggs to the Mocha Silk pie (I’ll add the recipe later-when I find it!). I made a delicious apple bake (recipe below) which was gobbled up in seconds!

Saturday I caught a lift out to the cricket. J was due to go flying for his PhD survey work (he ended up not going-long story!) and I said that I’d go do the scoring for the guys. The team they were playing is notorious for cheating so it’s always good to have more than one person keeping score! Fortunately our boys won the match, but only after much unpleasantness. Also good for the game were the 2 neutral umpires (a new thing that the local cricket board have introduced). The umpires were also  appalled at the lack of basic sportsmanship shown. They have promised to take things further and report the behaviour of some of the players to the governing board. It sounds terrible doesn’t it? Every year for the last 3 years we’ve debated whether to play against them. It would be so much more pleasant just to not have to. Complaints about their behaviour has always been countered by them. It always turns into a their-word-against-ours fight which no one will win. So it’s good to have a neutral third-party to back us up! Still, it’s always the BEST feeling to win against them, fairly, with sporting behaviour! After the game we had a few drinks at the club (oh SO bad for my calorie counting!) and then we ended up at Dave and Kelly’s house for dinner. A delicious braai of chops, borewors and steak with a lovely green salad and potato bake. She also made the most divine broccoli salad the recipe for which I will get from her! I never thought I’d ever eat raw broccoli. Go figure.

Sunday…well I don’t think I’ll forget Sunday in a hurry! My friend Nicole invited me to join her and her husband and their hiking club for a ‘beach walk’. I was assured that it wouldn’t be too long. It would just be something to ease into the new year with, more social than anything else. Fortunately I wore proper running shoes (I don’t have hiking boots) instead of going barefoot or in flip-flops. And I took a lot of water with me and lots of snacks. And a hat and sun cream. We walked from Kenton-on-Sea to Ship Rock, which is about 2km past the little seaside village of Kasouga. It was an 18km round trip. I didn’t think I could walk 10km let along 18km! Going there it wasn’t so bad, but coming back we were walking into a very strong headwind. It was lifting the sand off the beach and giving our shins a lovely exfoliating treatment which became excruciating after about an hour! The muscles on the front of my thighs are so sore from lifting my leg and swinging it into the wind. But I made it, and I am damn proud of myself! I lay in a hot bath for about an hour when I got home, and then slept on the couch after eating a HUGE slice of watermelon! J had to wake me up when he came in-I was dead to the world! Still, it was a lovely walk and I would show you photos, but my camera battery died yesterday evening, so you’ll just have to wait till tomorrow! When, no doubt, my legs will still hurt.

Today, I am having a quiet drink with my friend Jayne after work. I may be able to pick up the sewing machine she said she’d give me too. Till tomorrow then…!

Baked Apple Pudding

This pudding is meant to be cooked in a cast iron pot on the coals of a campfire, but you could also do it in the oven. This recipe will feed about 15 people, so adjust as necessary

Ingredients

• 1kg apples (green Granny Smiths, or red Starking are good)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 4 tsp each cinnamon and nutmeg
• 100g butter
• 50ml water
• Topping:
• 1 cup wholewheat flour
• 1 cup oats
• 100g softened butter

Grease the inside of your pot. Core and chop the apples into bite-size chunks and throw them into the pot. Sprinkle the sugar and the spices over them and stir until all pieces are well coated. Cut the butter into chunks and dot evenly around the apple pieces. Pour in the water (it helps to keep everything nice and moist). Meanwhile, mix the flour oats and other butter until it is crumbly. Spread this over the apple pieces. You could sprinkle some extra sugar on top if you wanted to. Bake on hot coals for about 40mins or until the topping is brown and the apples very soft. (in an oven, approx 350F for 40mins). Serve hot with thick whipped cream or ice-cream.

 

Potjie tonight

We’re having a small house-warming tonight. J’s making a kudu meat potjie. If you don’t know what a potjie is, you are probably not South African. Basically a potjie (say poi-kee) is both the cooking vessel, and the actual food dish. A potjie pot is a 3-legged cast-iron pot. A potjie dish can be anything. The most popular are basically stews of various meat, e.g. mutton, or beef, or venison. But I’ve also had chicken, seafood (which was divine!) and curries. Essentially they are all cooked over hot coals, for several hours. We’re having a bunch of friends over, J’s starting the fire at 3 and putting the kudu meat and red wine in to simmer around 4ish and we’ll eat at 7 for 7:30. Bliss!

In other news, I walked over 6km yesterday. I am rather proud of myself. And it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. J had the car so I walked to work (1.3km). Then I had to meet the gas people at home, so I walked back home (2.6km). Then I walked back to work via town and getting myself some lunch (2.2km so 4.8 total) and then I walked to Fruit and Veg and back home (1.9km so just about 6.7km). Silly I know, but I have to celebrate the small victories otherwise I get despondent and lose interest! J was still out when I got back, so I prepared all the dinner things (lamb chops, mashed potato, a salad and some chimichurri sauce) and sat and finished off my embroidery.

The whole scene, on a dishtowel

Float detail

Detail of the fishing man

Please notice the fishing reel and the eye-holes on the rod that the line passes through!! I’m rather proud of those!

I enjoyed the project. I want to do another one now. I’m not sure what I want to make though. I thought of a range of dish towels with funny saying/pictures or something. Or cushion covers….or something….suggestions? Ideas? I want to try crochet or knitting as well…can anyone suggest some good tutorials online?

We’ve got a few things planned this weekend. I’m scoring for the cricket on Saturday even though J’s not going to be there. The team we are playing are notorious for “cooking the books” so having more than one scorer is a good idea! I really don’t like them and wish we didn’t have to play them. But anyway.

On Sunday we are going through to Kenton for a beach-hike with some friends of ours. That will be lovely assuming the weather stays nice! I’ll take lots of photos I’m sure and put them up here on Monday!

No photo of my walk this morning, I had to drop the car off for tyre check-up! But from yesterday’s speed-walk home to meet the gas guy…

It's all a matter of perspective

This is looking in the opposite direction to my previous photos of town; towards iRhini and Fingo Village. That little copse of trees on the hill in the distance is known locally as Makana’s Kop. Makana was a chief during the Frontier Wars who came awfully close to over-running Grahamstown. He would have succeeded, but he hadn’t counted on the terror that the cannon at Fort England (fun fact-now a mental hospital! Those judged to be not fit for trial come here!) would have on his troops. The confusion allowed the back–up from Salem to get to town in time and the British troops and towns-people squashed the ‘rebellion’. If you want to know more, and you are in the area, I would recommend going on a Spirits of the Past tour. Kop is an Afrikaans word for head. The cathedral and other church spires are behind me.

That’s all she wrote folks! Have a lovely weekend!

 

It’s been a long week-

- and there’s still one more day to come!! *Sigh*

I fetched my car yesterday evening. Nothing too major other than needing new tyres. Damn dirt roads really chew through tyres fast! I will be taking it in to Continental tomorrow to see what they have to say and what they have on special etc. I must sort it out before going to Jhb because I’ll either get fined for not being roadworthy, or they’ll not last the trip and that could cause an accident which is less than ideal. Oh goodie!! I love starting the year with a brand new set of tyres…! (not). Fortunately not much else is wrong, they replaced the one spot headlight, and checked a few other things.

The gas people didn’t come yesterday, but they are going to come today. I just hope the rain holds off for a little while because I have to walk home to meet them. J is off to help out behind the bar at the cricket club today-the stock pens next door are having a sale and we provide refreshments and food. Quite a good deal, but a pain because it’s always during the week.

We had a nice dinner yesterday. Couscous with grilled chicken pieces and a whole lot of veggies. Broccoli, cauliflower and peas. YUM! Then we were very energetic and sat and watched Spooks. Just what I needed to wind-down after a hectic day yesterday. Strategy meetings, dealing with crazy Boss lady, a ton of work that I was supposed to do, but couldn’t (see above about crazy lady)…but I was also very good. I had water instead of tea, passed on a glass of wine and had mango for dessert instead of chocolate. I want to go buy a scale today to see how much this new TweetWhatYouEat is helping. (I’ve also just discovered TweetWhatYouSpend which will help with watching those pennies!)

I saw the most gorgeous flowers on the way to work this morning (I finally got to walk again after the miserable weather and having to drop off the car etc).

Huge flowers

Close up

 

Car Services and Gas Stoves

We had everything up and running again at work yesterday so I spent much of the day playing catch up and not getting around to what I was supposed to be doing. It’s always the way isn’t it?

Last night we had our weekly Girls Night supper. Nicole cooked a version of  ’Coq au Vin’ that she found on the internet. It was good, but needed some more seasoning. We all partook of much red wine and dark chocolate after supper and it was 10:30pm before I wound my way home! It’s great having a place in town. J caught a lift home after his meeting and I was free to come home when I liked!

This morning the sun is out and shining brightly through the freshly washed air. Everything is clean and sparkly and there is a fresh set of kitty footprints on my car. I didn’t take a photo thought because I didn’t walk to work. I had to drop off my car for a service (regular checkup) at 07:45. I want it to be all sorted for the drive up to Jhb at the end of next week.

The Gas stove people are also coming by later today sometime to give us a quote to have the new stove installed. I have to go meet the, I may have to walk to meet them as the car is in the shop. Bad planning on my part!

Hmmm….feeling uninspired about what to write. I need to go get more thread to finish the little picture I have in my head that is destined to become a little picture in thread on a dish cloth. Good times.

 

You may have noticed that I didn’t post yesterday. That’s because we had major server and electricity problems and no one could do anything at work so we all went home. It was nice, but now I have the fall-out of missing a day’s work to deal with! Some of this was written yesterday at home…in between twiddling my thumbs and drinking tea and cuddling my cats!

I had a lovely relaxed weekend. On Friday evening, we went to the Rat after work for some drinks with friends, we ended up having dinner there, and J stayed on after I went home to have a night out with a friend of his. Drinks and dinner were nice, but the steak in my steak roll could have been better. Ah well. J enjoyed his night out, he came in around midnight being ‘very quiet’.

Saturday morning we had pancakes with bacon and real maple syrup. A friend of mine is Canadian and she spent Christmas with her family in the snow and ice and brought me back the real thing. It is delicious. So much better than the fake maple-flavoured syrup! After breakfast I went off to do some grocery shopping and window shopping. I visited the local antiques shop (where they have the most gorgeous kitchen island in wood) and the farmers market (where they always have gorgeous veggies-locally grown). I also visited the local plant store and picked up some strawberry plants with nice long runners and two different types of basil. I planted out some other plants I’ve had for ages including a Clivia and some wild garlic. The thing I am really enjoying about this garden so far is that there are actually little micro-climates. A shady spot under the big Jacaranda tree, a sunny exposed side, other areas with more dappled sun…The old house was just hot and dry because there were no large established trees. ON Saturday night we made sushi with some smoked salmon. YUM!

Sunday we had an early-ish start. J finished mowing the lawn, I planted some peas and beans and mulched all the gardens with the grass clippings. Then we took advantage of the cool misty weather to go do some Geocaching. We found 2 caches, one of which was quite a challenge (see pic)!

It's here somewhere....

We also stopped by J’s parent’s house to return their lawn-mower and we nicked three little goldfish from their pond. J had an old tank he wanted to use so we put some pebbles in it and some weed and the newly named “Knife, Fork and Spoon”. Sunday afternoon we were supposed to unpack and sort out the office/study room, but we were lazy. I did a bit more embroidery but I don’t have a ring yet so it’s a bit slow going and not as tidy as I’d like. Ignore the purple marks, they were from my transfer pen.

Full view...

Detail

I also got an sms from my Boss to let me know that there are electricity and server problems.

On Monday I ambled into work around 0900 because we’d been told that the problems probably wouldn’t have been sorted out before then. Well, everything worked for a little while, and then something happened to the plugs and everything went offline. There were some very unhappy people around! I took the opportunity to go up to Birches and look for more thread and a ring (they still don’t have any in), and I wandered around Woolies and Clicks and stopped by the butchery and got 2kg of topside mince for R80 (student cards have some advantages!). I went back to work to see if they’d made any progress. They hadn’t so we went to chat to the gas stove people. Apparently the model we want is selling so well, there are none left in the country. Fantastic. So we’ve arranged for the to come give us a quote on installing it. The once they get here we’ll go about actually getting it and the cylinders and so on. Never simple these things.

I spent quite a lot of yesterday afternoon learning new embroidery stitches and playing around on a dish towel. Amazing how the time flies by!

Anyway, the weather has been wintery, not cold really, but rainy and miserable. The poor cats don’t know what to do with themselves! I don’t blame them, the weather is miserable. We’ve had 28mm of drizzle in the last 24hours!

View from the bedroom window. I did not walk to work this morning!

 

It promises to be a lovely weekend

J asked me yesterday what I want to do this weekend. I said: Nothing. After the last few chaotic weekends of moving stuff, watching cricket, moving stuff I just want to stay home and do nothing. That said, I also want to go along to the weekly farmer’s market, and visit the antique shop, and all that sort of stuff that we never got to do because all of it involved a 20km drive first! I also want to plant some veggies in buckets, I have an excellent idea for a sprinkler system that’ll make watering them all SO much easier…so I have a lot planned, but there’ll also be some down-time too!

Grahamstown view

I took a better pic of the view on my way in to work this morning. Isn’t it lovely? I really think it’s such a pretty town.I love all the trees and the greenery. It softens it I think. I also love that you can tell it is a small town. The churches are pretty much the tallest buildings, the hills in the distance are not built up, pretty much the whole of the older part of town rests in the bowl of the valley. I’ll have to go look to a few other vantage points to take a few more photos to share…

Yesterday’s meeting was interesting. The steering committee thing that I was invited to attend. A lot of very enthusiastic people with some big Blue Sky thinking. I mostly listened as I’m not all up to speed on how they got to where they are now. It was interesting. I’m excited to be on the committee, mostly because it is a great thing to have been involved with, but I am not sure that they have thought it all the way through. So we shall see.

Oh and yesterday morning, my dear Boss basically yelled at me and told me that I only ever see problems whenever she comes to me with an idea. Well I’m sorry, blindly agreeing with everything you say is not going to happen. I’ve seen what happens when no-one is prepared to actually think about the problems. If this weren’t such a well-paying job, hell, it’s a job, and the rest of the office weren’t so nice and if they weren’t contributing to my MBA, I would so be looking for somewhere else.

Tonight we’re going to go for a drink after work, maybe had a bite to eat there. A nice end to a LONG week  and a quiet evening I hope.