Pukka

Jamie Oliver does it again! I love this geezer. I tried out my Christmas Flavour Shaker for the first time tonight with one of the recipes Jamie includes in the packaging of his new invention. This is the revolutionary new pestle and mortar affair of the 21st century which makes bashing herbs fun and oh so simple. I pulverised some lemon, thyme, rosemary, garlic, oil and seasoning and poured it over my chicken before whacking it on the grill pan. Absolutely pukka, as Mr Oliver would say.

Anyone who likes cooking up a storm in the kitchen has probably already got one but, if you haven't get your bloody skates on and buy one. If you need more convincing, check out the video of Jamie in action!

Happy Birthday Seamus

Yesterday we went round to Seamus's flat with our two fold-up chairs, 2 bottles of red wine and a hip flask of vodka to join in with his 40th celebrations. He had put on a lovely spread and we nibbled our way through chorizo, Irish smoked salmon and other delicacies.

Sam had got him a fantastic Atletico cake which we put forty candles on, I still have the red fingers to prove it!

We played Charades for a while and nobody managed to get my interpretation of Matrix when I proceded to jump around the room in supposed Karate positions.

We had a great laugh and rolled home at about 4.30 after doing the taxi run in Jaime's poor, little, red car. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera so no pics.

Happy Birthday Seamus, y que cumples muchos más.

Epiphany

Yesterday was 'Reyes' in Spain , that's 'Kings day'. Jaime and I went up to La Vid de Ojeda in Palencia to spend the day with his family and watch his niece and nephew opening their presents. My gift to Maria went down a treat, it's a board with pegs and you make pictures, so simple and yet they played it for hours and hours. Even I got in on the action, I might ask Jaime to get me one for my birthday!

The kings brought me a nice new hair-dryer. They must have realised that mine kept turning itself off every 2 minutes. God Bless Caspar, Baltasar and Melchior!

Google

Google is so informative at times! I just went on Google to look something up and I noticed that the search engine had adopted this strange dot formation? This led me to the conclusion that today must have something to do with being blind or Braille. I typed 'Braille Day' into the search bar and low and behold the 4th of January is World Braille Day!

HAPPY 2006!!

Happy 2006 Everyone! As you can see from the photo we managed to have a little bit of snow this Christmas. Had a great time in England with the family and catching up with friends. Here's a picture of my grandparents waiting for their xmas dinner, and a snapshot of Milly looking beautiful beside the xmas tree. I managed a night out in Huddersfield with the girlies guzzling some rather nice Brazilian beer.

New Year's Eve was spent with Jaime and Seamus at Henny and Carmen's house. A great laugh was had by all. Good food, Irish smoked salmon and special bread courtesy of Seamus, copious amounts of cava and champagne and even live music from Henny with her flute playing along to Los Chicos del Coro (Les Choristes /the Chorus). The guiris managed to swallow their grapes in time to the chimes of the clock in Sol, unfortunately the supposed Spanish pros were about three grapes ahead of the chiming! Tut Tut!

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Good luck for 2006, may all your dreams come true!