A Nice Pot of Tea Please!

I haven’t really had a rant for a long time, but yesterday I had cause to become very cross and frustrated.
Remind me of the Country I live in, England! The greatest tea-drinking nation of the modern world, so why can you not get a POT yes a pot of tea at most motorway service stations.

As a fully paid up member of our great tea drinking nation I never, ever, ever, make myself a cup of tea by dunking a tea bag in a cup of hot water, even if I make tea for myself it is made in a warm pot out of good quality tea bags such as Twinings. Made in the cup results in either a tasteless brew of hot milky water or if you let it stand too long, the bitter taste of tannin makes it equally unpalatable.

I had to drive to Newcastle (and back) in a day for a brief visit to do an inventory on a Franchisee about to sell her business, a total of almost nine hours driving. On the way back I needed a real cup of tea brewed in a pot, surely not much to ask. I walked into the service station to be met with the usual disgusting choice of fat calorie laden rubbish and two ‘Costa coffee’ bars. On the overhead price list I could have, Cappuccino, Macciato, Espresso, Double espresso, Americana, Mocha, the list was endless. At the bottom as an after thought was cup of tea, or a pot of tea. Hurrah! A pot of tea!
I duly ordered the what was becoming a medicinal need, my pot of tea.
“Sorry love, I can only do you a cuppa tea”
“But it says a pot of tea £2.25 up their and I can see you have tea pots under their”
“Yeah, but we don’t have any lids for the pots so health and safety means I can’t give you one” I was getting pretty cross now as I was tired and desperate.
“Look, I don’t want a tea bag dangled in one of your ridiculously enormous cups I want a pot of tea, surely you have a lid somewhere”

She was a little puzzled that I would make such a fuss over a teapot, but she sent another member of staff out to the kitchens to locate a lid. I eventually got my most delicious pot of tea, but why the upsurge in these ridiculous coffee’s in place of our national brew!

I also ate a chicken wrap and today I am laid up food poisoning! Just what did she put in that pot?

Murder On the Dance Floor

At our dance class this week Barry definitely got his own back for me drawing blood on his toe two weeks before! Dancing a new routine of the waltz he was having a problem with his quite frankly easy steps compared to my twiddly bits. All he had to do was Three steps back and a whisk. I had to do one step forward, a hook step and turn 45 degrees into a whisk open out, see! I told you in comparison his was easy. Any way he kept putting an extra step in his routine throwing mine completely out.
Jenny our patient dance teacher asked Barry "where did it go wrong for you Barry" His answer?
"Quite frankly at the altar, Jenny"
Do you remember how he had to hop around the dance floor in pain when I trod hard on his foot, well we nearly had a repeat performance. (Actually I thought it very funny)

However the night before I arrived home on valentines night not expecting anything from Barry, not that romance is dead but he does not think he needs a special day to tell me he loves me, which is a good point. He produced champagne and strawberries! Whet a lovely surprise, mind you I am the family entertainment after a glass of champers but hey, who cares, I drank it and had a giggly evening!

Kingsbury Water Park

Let's have another go at the pictures!

Bad Dog

Barry has taken drastic action to avoid tonights dance class! he has gone to France where I can't reach his toes. The dance class has been cancelled due to the heavy snow anyway so he need not of gone, he he. (he is working really, or so he tells me)

Last night I had a rude awakening about midnight when I was woken from my slumber by a loud noise from the kitchen. Burglars? Don't be daft the dog would of barked, would'nt he...

I crept downstairs and investigated the kitchen, Ta-shi was sitting in his bed with an expression of innocence on his face. However the evidence led me to his crime. He had pulled open a cupboard and managed to pull the deep fat fryer out emptying the oil out onto the floor. A trail of oily footprints led to Ta-shi's bed! What a bad dog. So at midnight I was trying to mop up oil with old towels and washing the floor. Not a happy bunny.

Then at 6.30 am my phone rang scaring me half to death, with Mum being so poorly. It was a cheerful Barry wishing me 'Good Morning' I grumpily remimded him that French time was an hour ahead of us here. Oops! I tried to go back to bed for a while as I was not working today. Only ta-shi started frantically barking in the 'Come quick there is a monster in the garden' way. I came downstairs to see what kind of monster we had lurking outside (its usually a neighbours cat) It was the large bush in the corner which was covered in snow making it look like a giant white man in the corner of the garden. I let him out to see to the 'monster' and he discovered the wonders of the snow and started dashing around in it like a bonkers dog, he loved it. Every time I called him indoors, he shouted to go out again, a bit like having a small child around again.

We later went for an exciting walk in it taking the little girls from nextdoor with us as their school was closed. So... I played snowballs, helped in a snowman project and acted my shoe size, what fun.

Mum update: Doctor has doubled her heart tablets as symptoms worsened over the last few days, my Sis say's she is looking a little better, more colour and breathing easier. I spoke to Mum on the phone who was very sad and told me she thinks she is going to die. What could I say to her? I tried to say that I am sure she will be fine and the Doctors will know how to treat her when the various test results are through. Was that the right thing to say, I don't know. Maybe she wanted to talk about the possibility of her life coming to a close, but it was not something I could discuss with her. She was very amused to hear of Ta-shi's antics though and had a chuckle at his naughtiness.

PS. The last blog re bike ride should of had two pics attached but it did not happen, don't know what I did wrong.

First Bike Ride of the Year

We dusted down the bikes, pumped up the tryes and went to Kingsbury water to have a gentle ride on Sunday. A beautiful winter sunny day, absolutely freezing but spectacularly beautiful.

Three Firsts and a Sadly

Its been a week of 'firsts' for me this week. I made marmalade for the first time! I have often made Jam but never marmalade. It was very theraputic, the hardest job was removing the pith from the peel before chopping it finely for the pan. The secret! A potato peeler! It did the job in no time. The resulting marmalade is delicious I may never eat shop bought again. I am now finding bits of orange peel stuck in all sorts of odd places though.

The next first, another culinary venture! I filleted two whole sea bass. I needed fillets for a recipe but the fishmonger only had whole fish. Ok, I know I could of asked the nice man in the white coat to do it for me, but how hard could it be?

I put the brace of fish washed and ready on my chopping board, I looked at them, and alarmingly they looked at me! So.... the heads had to go. One fishy was easily sorted and soon two neat little fillets lay de-scaled and ready for the pan. The other little fishy was reluctant to give up its skeleton, but with some determined pulling and cutting two more not quite so neat little fillets sat ready to be cooked over couscous, tomatoes, fennel and olive oil. All the more delicious knowing I had literally cooked it totally from scratch, if only I had been out and caught the little fishy's, but as I live in the dead centre of England I am about as far away from the sea as you can get on our little island home.

The third first, if you get my meaning. I , for the first time in ten years of ballroom/latin dancing actually drew blood on my poor husbands toe! We were learning a new complicated Cha cha routine I stepped forward instead of back and landed a heel lead full body weight step straight onto one of poor BJ's digit's! He was very gentlemanly about it and after two circuits of the hall hopping around clasping his foot said it was OK! I was mortified when I later saw his bare sore foot. ooops!

Sadly my Mother is very poorly at the moment, I dread every message received tone on my phone and am on tenterhooks. The fact that their are many miles between us makes it more difficult. I know she is almost 80 and has lived a difficult life with many mental health problems which has made our relationship difficult at times. But... she is my Mum for better or for worse, as they say, andI am not ready to lose her. She has been wickedly witty, funny and a loyal Grandmother (probably better at being a Grannie than a mummy) when the boys were small. Rob took his first steps to Grandma! She was delighted to have Grandsons after having three girls and was ace at story reading. Any-one reading my blog say a little prayer for my Mum! please...