Monthly Memoir: March

I can't believe March is already over. It is normally February that flies past, but this year March is taking that honour. I realise I only posted twice as well, which seems a bit poor, however as I am writing this for me I am not going to apologise. I did however have quite a busy month so need to retroactively write some posts to cover it all. Meantime here is a quick review for my own records.

One word to sum up the month?

Brilliant!

Do something/go somewhere other than the norm?

Yes- a fantastic weekend away down in Devon at a certain farm cottage by a river. Post coming soon I promise!

Best meal?

Hmm tricky as there were two excellent meals this month and can't really compare, so guess I should just stop being lazy and do a post on them. 

Best drink?

Bottle of Chateau du Vieux Parc, Corbiere 2012. Was very very nice.

Buy anything new?

Yes - some new boots and a lovely bright dress in the sale from M&S (when they had stopped messing up their online orders)

Wear anything good?

The boots mentioned above. Mr Owl has been rocking some fab outfits of late, am going to have to try and sneak a photo of him to post.

See anything good?

Chappie- by Neil Blomkamp. I loved this film and totally recommend it. (Along with his first two films: District 9 and Elysium). Set in South Africa it was one of the most interesting takes on AI I have seen.

Anything else?

Generally it was a great month I just need to catch up on writing about it all.

Little Owl 

 

Argentinian Barbecue

Ok- for those of you clicking on here expecting to see a post from Argentina (I wish!) or an asado then you will be disappointed but bear with me. We have been watching the Cook Abroad series on the BBC- we are a little behind the actual broadcasts but it is on iplayer - and last week we saw John Torode in Argentina. Before the episode had even ended, in fact about 5minutes in, we knew that steak was going to be on the menu for the weekend. I have mentioned before my willingness to take a theme and run with it for food, so in addition to the steak we decided to make our own chimichurri sauce to accompany it, have empanadas to start and some sort of dulce de leche pudding. All we needed now was the barbecue element. Landrover and this winter's #hibernot campaign then came to mind (yes we regularly think about/discuss/fantasize about the Landrover of our dreams... another post another time!) and we decided to acquire a barbecue and go for it weather whatever, ok to be fair we checked it was due to be dry as barbecuing under golf umbrellas is a pain!

Planning done when the weekend came around it was time to instigate it. Now I admit that we cheated on the empanadas as M&S do some lovely ready made ones in their snacks/deli section. We also needed a sweet milky pudding and it is impossible to resist buying the Billionaires Dessert when in M&S so in that went too. Luckily Sainsbury's are already selling disposable BBQs so that solved that dilemma.

The evening started with empanadas (which I forgot to photo as I was busy eating them) and a glass of caiprinha. Although this is really a Brazilian drink it is the same continent, so that counts right? These have been hit and miss in the past, but this time we made our own sugar syrup beforehand and it was much better. We did a simple 1:1 ratio of caster sugar and water and gave it a good shake. We also added some mint into ours for a caiprinha-mojito vibe. It worked!

Then it was on to the chimichurri. We ended up with 2 versions of this. The first we did with fresh parsley, dried oregano, garlic, chilli, vinegar and oil however Mr Owl was not pleased. He claimed the gauchos would use dried parsley and so a second batch was whipped up. Personally I preferred the fresh parsley version but I think this is a sauce that will only improve with practice. The dried one is at the front in the below shot.

Finally after all the prep it was time for the steaks themselves. We had lit the BBQ earlier so it was lovely and hot and the steaks were seasoned and oiled. There was something quite exciting about standing outside the in the dark (with a drink) while they cooked away. I am sure the neighbours must have though we were mad, but we had fun. To accompany the steak we did 'special potatoes' (par boiled potatoes fried with onion and garlic) and corn on the cob also finished on the BBQ for that smoky flavour. The whole thing was a complete success and tasted fantastic. It was extra special to be outside in the dark looking at the stars while everything cooked. I now plan to get a big chiminea or fire pit that we can use to keep warm so we can make more of being outdoors even during the colder darker months. It was really invigorating to be outside in the fresh air and am sure it helped us sleep better, or was that the bottle of Argentinian Malbec?!  #Hibernot may be a marketing campaign but that doesn't mean that we don't benefit from actually doing it! This weekend is the equinox and if we didn't already have plans then I think we would be doing it all over again to celebrate!

Little Owl 

Sweet Dreams

So in my Feb round up I jokingly asked if I could do a post just on my new bed, then I thought why the hell not? The importance of sleep is something that 'experts' are always going on about in relation to your overall health and a good bed is a vital part of that. In fact it was Mr Owl's grumblings about our previous bed that spurred us on to finally getting a new one. To be honest it wasn't the old bed that was the problem, it was the mattress on it. We had an Ikea Malm bed and had put a new Ikea mattress on it when we moved in here. We had bought the mattress after following the in store guide as to what should suit us, rather than going with what we thought - a mistake we won't make again. After 4 years it felt soft and saggy and Mr Owl was complaining of a sore back. Annoyingly we had a very good mattress on the spare bed that was never used, but due to having gone down the Ikea route it was too small on our bedframe. We considered getting a new bedframe instead, however as our bedside tables were matching Malm and we had large oak wardrobes too, it was hard to find a bed we thought looked right. Finally Ikea came to the rescue when searching once again through their website I discovered they now do standard size beds- hurrah! Even better they had started doing a higher version of the Malm bed with drawers underneath and we all know that more storage is never a bad thing! The result of this was a slightly manic weekend where we hired a van, went to get the new bed, dismantled the old one and drove it down to Mr Owl's parents (who having just moved house needed a bed for their spare room) and then taking the van back all in less than 24 hours- but it was totally worth it!

I love the new firmer mattress and being higher up, and a few weeks on I still pretend I am in the Princess and the Pea where she has to climb up in to her bed with a ladder (ok so I don't quite need a ladder) as it is so piled up with mattresses! The underbed drawers are great too- admittedly the ones at the head of the bed are hard to access due to the bedside tables, but I have used them to put all my summer clothes away in so I'll only need to open them occasionally when I swap between winter and summer stuff. The others have been used to hide away my (too many) pairs of shoes.

These photos are how our bedroom actually looks this afternoon - apologies for the poor lighting. We like to keep it fairly minimal and clutter free with nothing to distract from sleeping (ahem!). I love the look of hotel beds, with their fancy bedspreads and hundreds of cushions, but let's be honest you end up throwing them all on the floor, just to have to pick them all back up the next morning. However I do like to buy the best quality duvet covers I can sensibly afford as they help to give that luxury feeling. The one in the photos was from Debenham's and is by Christy.

Anyway that is our new bed and I guess a mini bedroom overview. All that's left now is to find a replacement mattress for the spare room before we have any visitors!

Little Owl 

Monthly Memoir: Feb '15

So I have decided to start a little monthly review post, mainly so I can keep track of what happened when. While I tend to have a really good memory, I can never remember when things actually happened, for example I could tell you all about the time we drove to France in detail, but I haven't the slightest idea what year it was and would be guessing at the month (I know it was summer time-ish). Luckily Mr Owl has an uncanny memory for what exact date things happened on even if he can spend 5mins staring vaguely into the fridge wondering what he opened the door for!! It does make him really good in a pub quiz when they ask you what year a song was released in.

Anyway with all that in mind I will try and do a little review each month so that nothing gets overlooked. I plan to try and answer the same questions each time so there is a semblance of planning and continuity.

One word to sum up the month

Relief! 

Do something/go somewhere other than the norm?

Does Ikea count? It was a fairly quiet month otherwise. We attempted to do a big night out in Manchester but due to lack of restaurant booking it was more of a quiet night.

Best meal?

Valentines meal see here for details. 

Best drink?

Pint of the lovely Flat Cap back on as a guest in the local.

Buy anything new?

Does a bed count? (see Ikea above) I am still very excited about going to bed now, even over a week on from getting it. I feel like I am in the princess in the Princess and the Pea story now on her high bed of multiple mattresses. I may have to do a post just on the new bed such is the love!

Wear anything good?

Not the best month sartorialy speaking, and as I hadn't decided I was going to do this post I didn't do any outfit photos. Next month will be better I promise. Hopefully the challenge of one good outfit a month won't be too challenging (Then again I am currently in bright red jogging bottoms, about 3 layers and a hoodie over the lot so...) 

Anything else?

Only to say bear with me on this, hopefully next month will have more excitement and maybe even some photos!!

Little Owl 

 

V Day

Mr Owl and I are always happy to use any small reason as an excuse to cook something nice/appropriate and drink something bubbly - this is at a 'Tonight's film is set in Italy?  Lets cook pasta and drink prosecco' level of reasons - so Valentine's Day provides the perfect opportunity to indulge this habit. We're both big fish lovers so decided to make a day out of driving to the best fishmonger's we have found down in Manchester ( all recommendations for fishmonger's welcome) and seeing what we could get. Seems we weren't the only people to have thought of this and it was pretty busy, but we still manged to get some lovely fat scallops and a nice piece of hake!

The scallops we pan fried wrapped in pancetta and served on a small salad with black pudding and a balsamic dressing!

The hake we cooked according to a Rick Stein recipe- Hake en Papillote. This was super easy to do but looked pretty damn fancy. We had to do our own sun-blushed (oven roasted) tomatoes and tapenade to go with. The tapenade was amazing- incredibly simple to make and an amazing flavour. We had already started planning other dishes to use it on before we finished eating.

To drink we started with a Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Vintage Cava. This was surprisingly good, we both love the TtD Vintage Champagne but decided to save the pennies and try the cava. I totally recommend it. To go with the meal we had another TtD wine - a Sancerre. Again this was excellent, if I were Jilly Goolden I would be muttering about mangoes and tropical fruit...

After all the fancy we finished it off with a custard slice- guaranteed to taste good and a fraction the price of most other puds!
I hope you all had a nice Valentine's Day in whatever way you choose to celebrate it.

Little Owl 

 

To blog or not to blog

If anyone were to read this, they would realise that I haven't posted for a while, over 6months in fact. I am still not sure that I want to start doing this again, and have been trying to decide one way or the other. I think half the problem is that I didn't start this with totally the right intentions. It began initially as a fashion thang! I had come across WIWT (What I Wore Today) set up by Poppy Dinsey. The idea was that she posted what she wore every day to try and encourage her to make the most of her large wardrobe.  I was inspired by this as I also have far too much stuff and yet seem to live in the same few pieces. When she extended the website out for members, I decided to join in to see if it would help me to wear more of my own stuff. (I didn't tell anyone I had done this, at my age I felt a little daft and wasn't sure I would keep it up.) This had a few effects: 1- deciding what to wear each day became massively more stressful, as the other users could comment and approve it and I had to remember to photo myself. 2 - I realised I enjoyed writing the comments under the outfits more than what I was wearing,  3- I found blogs as other users put links to theirs up.
Naturally most of the blogs I started reading were fashion ones, and I was surprised at the feedback the bloggers got, not to mention the freebies, despite the fact they were just taking pictures of their outfits and adding some, often badly spelt, text underneath (yes I realise I am opening myself up to having every spelling and grammar error I make pointed out to me!). I decided I could get in on this too, after all I had far too many clothes and could use my husband's DSLR to take some decent photos, plus I was fighting multiple health issues so this gave me something new to focus on.

So as I said, my intentions were not the purest it was more just to prove that I could do this. Well it turns out that trying to think of  new 'on trend' outfits and then fitting in time to photograph them in interesting locations to create a beautiful fashion shoot-esque post is bloody hard work and exhausting. The more I looked at other people's blogs for inspiration the more pathetic mine seemed. I tried mixing in travel and food etc to embrace the 'lifestyle' trend but when you have spent an hour making a cake only to realise you forgot to photograph half the stages you begin to lose the will to care let alone have the time to make it all over again. This coincided with a lot of people on the blogs I was still reading talking about the meaning of blogging, why people do it and if we should do it.
When a week of no post slid into 2 weeks and then a month I admitted defeat and decided I wasn't cut out for this blogging thing- and anyway don't we all overshare too much these days anyway etc etc.

Despite this I continued to read blogs and found myself thinking how things I did would make a good post, so after too many Negronis in the New Year I swore I would give it another go, seeing as it is now mid-Feb you can see how successful at resolutions I am! Nontheless here I am and this time there are a few basic rules to keep me sane:

Outfits- I am not a trendy waif like 20something (despite all my wishes) who hits up Topshop every weekend for the latest outfits. So no more posts where I do my hair and makeup and photo a new outfit of the day, before washing it all off and putting my joggy bottoms and hoodie back on. If I wear something I like maybe I will share it.

Food- No Macaroons, they don't taste good and surely no one would ever choose them over a large slice of cake!?

Lifestyle- more real life and less stylised life. This might make for dull reading, but it will be truthful.

I guess this could all be summed up as honesty. If I keep this up I want it to be something I can look back through and remember the weekend I spent on the sofa with a box set and southern fried chicken not wonder why I was wearing high heels and a dress in the middle of winter in the woods.
Let's see if it lasts or if I lose interest again.

 

Little Owl 

Scotland: Ballamory

Ok so it is really Tobermory but it is where the children's TV program was filmed and is the reason many people visit- our interest was slightly more whisky based! The ferry runs from Oban to Craignure on the Isle of Mull and from there the local bus connects to the ferry to run you up to Tobermory. We caught the mid-morning ferry along with every tourist in west Scotland (or so it felt) but once onboard there was plenty of space. The trip over doesn't take that long and is very pretty, you get a lovely view of Oban, out past the old castle and then the lighthouse, although even in the sunshine it was fairly chilly in the wind.

Tobermory did not disappoint with the little harbor of brightly painted houses curving around the bay. We had booked a tour of the distillery for the afternoon, so meantime took a gentle stroll right around admiring the view and nosing in  the many little independent shops. The sea air had its usual effect so we stopped off for lunch at the cafe in the old church to share a prawn sandwhich and a lovely large slice of tiffin to help line our stomachs before the distillery tour.

Understandably we weren't allowed to take photos inside the distillery but the tour was excellent and very interesting. The video at the start was a little cheesy but didn't last long. We were then guided through the whole whisky making process from the drying of the barley through to the finished product. Our guide was very informative and entertaining and more than happy to answer questions. The tour finished up with a dram of their standard single malt, though for a small extra fee you could also taste the Ledaig (leycheck)- which of course we did! After all this tasting Mr Owl then convinced me we needed to buy a bottle to add to our existing whisky collection, and some whisky tablet, and a hat! Even if you aren't a whisky drinker, or even a drinker, then the tour is very interesting and gives an insight into one of Scotland's most famous industries. I certainly appreciate it even more (was this possible?) now I know more about the whole process.

Internally warmed we climbed back on to the bus to connect to the return ferry. All in a fantastic day out in a very picturesque setting!