Hotel fun

I stayed in a hotel last night, It reminded me of something that happened last time I was there that I thought was amusing enough to share......

It was about three years ago, My company had put me up there the night before an interview for the job I have now.

I arrived late, tired from a long drive, I still had just enough spark to attempt a little flirting as the receptionist checked me in. To get to my room I had to walk through the bar to the lift at the end. It was a fairly uncomfortable walk because the bar was full and for all I knew anyone in there could have been on the interview panel or perhaps other interviewees, obviously first impressions count so I made an effort to walk tall, to act calm and composed and give off waves of confidence as I made my way through.

When I got to my room, I immediately began hotel SOP, that is I took all my clothes off, save my pants (a particularily worn and crusty pair), set the bath running and grabbed the ice bucket.

The ice machine was in the corridor just opposite my door, the place seemed completely deserted so I thought I would run the risk and nip out as I was for some ice, I leant out, checked left and right and made my move to the machine, chucked a couple of scoops of ice into the bucket, checked the corridor again and darted back to the room.

I think I allowed myself a slightly thrilled smile as I reached my door having gotten away with my dirty dash.

I pushed the door and.........it didn't move.

I pushed harder...the door was stuck

I pushed even harder....desperately trying not to accept the unthinkable truth.....the door was locked, I had walked out, without the key and the door had clicked shut behind me.


Bugger.

You can imagine the rest for yourselves. With the bath still running I had to act fast, I had to walk, in just my pants, through the bar full of my future employeers, back to the reception, to the girl I had attempted to flirt with not five minutes before and ask for another key. Armed with only a grungy pair of pants and an ice bucket, I briefly considered putting the bucket on my head to hide my shame, in the end I took a deep breath and as the lift doors opened onto the crowded bar everyone fell silent and I made a second effort that night to walk tall, act calm and composed and give off waves of confidence.


I got the job.

dream meeme

Managed to spend a bit of time on the allotment this weekend, I collect and grow various chilli varieties and now spring has definately sprung things are starting to look good.

This is my ornamental tent, a few different varieties there that will grow into pretty compact plants bursting with various different colour chillies

This is the view into my main poly tunnel, a few tomatoes in there but mainly my main crop chillies, the block of plants in the bottom right all need potting up into decent size containers when I get the time and compost!

Pleased to see some really early chillies appearing already, these are Hungarian Hot Wax from a plant I kept alive indoors through the winter
Once the plants start to produce fruit it will be easier to differentiate them and show off some varieties, but for anyone who is interested my grow list is currently:

•     Bhut Jolokia Chocolate
•     Dorset Naga
•     Habanero Chocolate
•     Habanero Mustard
•     Habanero Orange
•     Habanero Red
•     Habanero Tobago
•     Habanero White
•     Habanero Condors Beak
•     Bhut Jolokia
•     Jati Jolokia
•     Kharika Jolokia
•     Krishna Jolokia
•     Mem Jolokia
•     Scotch Bonnet Orange
•     Scotch Bonnet Red
•     Trinidad Scorpion
•     Trinidad Scorpion Yellow
•     Marouga Red
•     Habanero 7 Pot  
•     Naga Morich
•     Aji Lemon Drop
•     Bishops Crown
•     Bolivian Rainbow
•     Cayenne
•     Cayenne Golden
•     Cayenne Long Purple
•     Cayenne Long Slim
•     Rocoto Red
•     Purple Tiger
•     Ring of Fire
•     Orozco
•     Portugal
•     Rodeo F1
•     Serrano Tampequino
•     Serrano Purple
•     Apache
•     Aurora
•     Demon Red
•     Hungarian Hot Wax
•     Jamaican Red
•     Jamaican Yellow
•     Numex Centennial
•     Numex Twilight
•     Pasilla Bajio
•     Ring Of Fire
•     Super Chilli F1
•     Tabasco
•     Thai Hot
•     Ancho Grande
•     Black Hungarian
•     Bulgarian Carrot
•     Cherry Bomb
•     Fresno
•     Jalapeno Early
•     Jalapeno Purple
•     Sante Fe Grande
•     Tam Jalapeno
•     Caloro
•     de arbol
•     Royal Black
•     Filus Blue
•     Aji Limo
•     Apricot
•     Cheeky
•     Pettie Bell
•     Trinity
•     Fairy Lights
•     Rooster Spur
•     Sparkly
•     Stumpy
•     Aji Crystal
•     Cobra
•     Bellboy
•     Big Red
•     Chocolate Beauty
•     Golden Californian Wonder
•     Hungarian Yellow Wax
•     Purple Beauty
•     Red Skin
•     Sweet Banana
•     Yolo Wonder
•     Orange Sun
•     Sweet Red Cherry
•     Diablo
•     Jalepeno
•     Nose Gay
•     Topaz
•     Demon Red
•     Cayenne
•     Rocoto Canario
•     Bode Vermhela
•     Caldero
•     Pulsa Swala
•     Cyklon
•     RedHabanero
•     De Arbol
•     Hot Cherry
•     Saraha
•     Naga Morich
•     Tokyo Hot
•     Cielo Rojo
•     Piaviaho
•     Cheiono Pessego
•     Cheiro Vermelha
•     Burts Golden Balls
•     Scotch bonnet
•     Bangalore torpedo
•     Hot tepin
•     Unknown
•     Chocolate habanero
•     Guards cielo
•     Wenks yellow

+ Several varieties that friends are currently growing for me to swap later in the year. 

Baby hand mould

Anyone who has had children will tell you they grow far to quickly, before you even know it you are looking at baby photos without the faintest memory that they could have ever been so small.

We visited my Mum at the weekend and she gave us a special present, a baby hand mould kit. Well I say kit, it was actually just the ingredients  Alginate and plaster of paris. Ours had been given to my Mum by a friend who had it left over after commissioning some work from the police making rubber cadavers for use in training exercises ( I have seen them by the way - bloated and rotten corpse of overweight man found in water was my favourite)

Anyway, we made a couple of hand moulds from baby jasper who is 10 weeks old (already!!)

First step make a container, cut the top off a bottle, split it down both sides and cover with tape, also tape over the rough top edge.

Next mix the Alginate  (a very light blue powder) 1:1 by volume with luke warm water and mix

Next step, swear a bit when you realise you have faffed about too long and the Alginate has set into a solid rubber chunk

 

Try again, this time directly in the (leaky) pot and mix quickly with a fork

 

 Stick babys hand in (Alginate is nice and gentle so you don't need any clingfilm or vaseline) try to hold still fort three minutes and get a blury shot of crying baby. Next gently pull arm out with a satisfying slurp, have a look in mould at little finger holes.

Mix plaster of paris 1:1 warm water and pour into the mould

When the plaster is hard the fun starts, peeling off the alginate

The next bit is almost to exciting for words, you don't have any idea what you are going to get so as the little hand is uncovered it is almost like seeing you nnew baby for the first time

Taa daa -  a perfect tiny fist, a memory for ever.

By now Jasper had fallen back asleep so we had another go and got another shape

Disaster the hand has snapped off at the wrist

The index finger fell of thsi one as well, but we fixed it with glue

You can get Alginate on eBay - we used about 150g for each hand.

Sushi

A very heavily pregnant Elizabeth and I relocated to Dorset from London a couple of years ago. There are many things we miss (and even more that we don't) but chief among them is the variety of food. In our local supermarket the world food section is where they keep the pasta and seems to be carefully avoided by the locals. It's a far cry from our old life; Jamaican patties from street vendors in Greenwich, Korean food in Holborn, Ethiopian in Kentish Town and buying spices by the kg for about the same price you would pay for the little jars of stale and dusty Schwartz in the supermarket. But by far the biggest thing I miss is Sushi (vinegared rice) and fresh Sashimi (raw fish).

Semi regularily we do make our own at home, it's not really difficult as long as you keep your knives sharp and wet. We can't get sushi rice down here so I use Arborio which works just as well. There is a lot of fuss on the internet about buying Sashimi grade fish but I always just get whatever is on the fish counter in Morrisons and have never had any problems. I can't make it anywhere as near as neat and beautiful as a proper sushi chef  but it tastes great.

 The table above is from when @jenclone came to visit

Still there is nothing like having Sushi made for you, so when we planned a day trip to London at the weekend Sushi was top of my list. The only problem with Sushi is that it is expensive and I generally leave the restaurant worried about the cash I have just blown and still hungry.

The solution for me is all you can eat Sushi buffet.

We chose Hi Sushi because they do just that and went to their branch in Muswell Hill because it fitted nicely with our travel plans.

 I didn't much fancy trying to sit on the floor but luckily they have thought of that and brought the floor up to chair level.

 

First course, I can't remember exactly what is there other than obviously the salmon and the white fish is grey mullet

 

 I had never tried straight boiled soya beans before but actually they were lovely, Lizi let one get away from her and it landed under a chair at the bar

We went for some hot food next, tempura prawns, squid and sweet potato, some spring rolls, pork and chicken escalope.

 More Sushi, this time Lizi ordered and did really well apart from the salmon skin sushi, I just couldn't get my head round it - but that might of had something to do with the insane amounts of sushi I had already eaten. We cleared the plate apart from two salmon skin rolls that we just couldn't face.

At this point I was stuffed, I had really wanted to try the clam sashimi but it wasn't to be.\

 Fill up on Sushi = Mission Successful.

Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday
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My boy all grown up

Video Blog today!

When he was about 8 months old Roman suddenly started crawling, he just flopped forward on the living room floor while Elizabeth was out and dragged himself along, then did it twice more, that was it he was a crawler!

I took him up to pick his Mum up from her kickboxing class and using the good old car keys as a carrot trick I demonstrated his newest trick, I caught this one on camera. So here it is Roman's 4th ever crawl and the first time his Mum saw him do it



The Second video is from Easter Sunday just gone and a family trip to Farmer Palmers, Roman getting very excited and joining a herd of sheep. He sounds like he is shouting "BASTARDS, BASTARDS" but I assure you it is "Baa Sheep, baa Sheep"