More social whirl in the Midlands

Prepping for paella and tiramisu at Fi and James' tomorrow (the eagle eyed will notice the custard slices on the table for afternoon tea and cake this afternoon - yum!)

It’s all been very domesticated, but it’s got to be done. Water meter fitted on Tuesday followed by gas and electric meters on Wednesday. I then made a squash and courgette curry, with courgette from H&I’s allotment, to go with a chicken biryani cooked from scratch. To help eat we had our first guests. Alex and Rob came over which was lovely. It was good to see Rob walking after his operation and with the straightest leg we’ve ever seen him.

The start of the North Worcestershire Way

Thursday I went to have lunch with Abi before taking her to the dental hospital. The dentist accidentally broke off a crown about seven months ago while trying to remove it. She has been waiting this long for an appointment at the new dental hospital, where Pebble Mill used to be. They didn’t know what drugs they’d have to use on her as her hyper mobility means normal pain killers don’t work, so just in case of a general anaesthetic I’d packed an overnight bag. They called her in bang on time, so I went for a walk in Cannon Hill Park, scene of many lunchtime walks while working. I’d barely got in when she rang to say it was all over. What a relief but quite an anticlimax. We had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon before I went home to check on Brian. I’d dropped him off at the canal in Kings Heath on my way in and he’d walked home. Good practice for the Cotswold way (B: 12.5miles, 140m of ascent along part of the North Worcestershire Way. See my short Relive video of the route with lots of photos: click here)

Lovely views and a pleasant walk

A quiet weekend with gardening (we have to make sure the brown bin is full every fortnight when it goes for recycling), cooking, fish pie as I’d been promising for ages and slow cooker pork so I could fill the oven with roasted vegetables. (Love roasted beetroot, from the allotment) We went to Birmingham Road to empty the loft. We took a load to the tip, but that was enough. At least it is all accessible now. We’ve now been through lots of photos, so ordered a scanner to try and get some of them stored in the cloud. A job for our next Housesit in Arbroath!

With Denise and Paul on our walk round Earlswood Lakes

It’s been all change on the upstairs curtains. We ordered a second automatic curtain closer, for our bedroom, but this is a track. The curtains in there were on a pole. Fortunately we’ve got some curtains back from Birmingham Road of the right size, so they’ve gone in the front. The pole and curtains have gone to the spare room, and the curtains from there have gone into the study, where there were no curtains.

A little bit further round Earlswood Lakes

Tuesday we went to Denise and Paul for a walk. This started late as their bathroom fan has been very noisy, so could Brian go in the loft and have a look? Touch wood, he’s cleaned and fixed and it sounds much better. This, in conjunction with the unreliable weather, and the fact that they hadn’t been to their allotment for a week, brought on a walk around Earlswood lakes before some harvesting at their allotment, we came home with more courgettes, (it’ll be a moussaka and cake, at some point) kale, onion and beans. Lunch at the Red Lion in Earlswood may not have been fully earned, but was still thoroughly enjoyable.

At Denise and Paul's allotment. Lots of stuff growing there and all very yummy!

As we’d arrived at D&P’s my car door handle had behaved a bit oddly, but let me out. That was the last time however, Paul couldn’t get out at the Red Lion, nor I when we got home! Looking on the Internet it appears that the handle has a flimsy bit of plastic that breaks over time. Hopefully it’s that, but rather than take the door panel etc off to check, we’ll spend the tenner to get one ordered so when we do take it off we have the where withall to fix it. We thought that would take a good part of Thursday, but actually took about half an hour to replace. It’s amazing what videos you can find on the internet!

More prep for the paella

We’ve been to see Oppenheimer at the cinema, well worth watching, though not necessarily easy, and long! Done our normal Monday night online meeting, and been to the Weighbridge with John and co. Today was shopping and prepping for the annual paella at Fiona and James, using, amongst other things, onion and beans from D&P’s allotment, for me, while Brian has created his caramel vodka tiramisu, which looks fab, though quite how it’s going to travel I’m not sure. It’ll still taste really good!

Don't look at this video if you don't want this naff tune on your mind for the rest of the day! You have been warned! It amused us, when we emptied the loft at the house we're selling in Alvechurch we had loads of memorabilia, photos, Christmas tree and decorations and various pieces of furniture. We had saved all our wedding cards and lots of cards from various birthdays. In the pack of cards for Jackies 40th birthday we found this one from our friends Alex and Rob. It is 15 years old and has been stored in the loft for the past 11 years, but the batteries were still good and it worked - amazing!