Joy

After that previous post, something to celebrate today is that it was one year ago today that I left Brighton to move to Essex to live with Chris. Despite such a whirlwind romance my gut feeling (and his too if I may be so bold to speak on his behalf) is that we are both really happy together and that the decision was absolutely the right one. I miss my friends in Brighton but can pop back as and when as it's only a few hours away but sadly that's not possible with the choir and I've still not found another that I feel "fits" as the Rainbow Chorus did. I'm still looking though.

Things are (much!) quieter, the pub is closer, the night is blacker, the stars are brighter, the feel is calmer, the buses are fewer, natural beauty is much closer and life is very different.

I'm looking forward to the unfolding years of my new life with my wonderful, loving and provocative man. Yey!

Cake competition

This post is stupidly overdue, but that seems to be the way with me. I'll try to improve ...

Anyway, it was my first Goldhanger Gala Weekend at over the 8/9th of September weekend and there were a number of competitions one of which was "cake to a given recipe". I love cooking so I thought I'd enter into the spirit.

It was "Crunchy topped lemon cake", though on the recipe printed in the parish magazine 'Crunchy' had lost its 'n' ...

So, I made the cake which was only the 3rd I've ever made. Number 1 was a disaster and put me off for many, many years. The 2nd was earlier this year and was a Delia recipe which was a definite success so I thought this one might turn out OK.

I made it on the Friday because I knew there would be no time on the Saturday (can't remember why) even though I had to enter it on the Sunday. Anyway, on a beautifully sunny Sunday morning I took my cake on its slate base to the tent in the churchyard and placed it beside the other entries. I have to say, I thought mine looked very nice.

I went back at 4:30pm or so after the judging and was greeted with a "Ta Ra" by about four or five women in the tent and walking over to the cake ... well, what did I see?

On the reverse of the left paper it said something like "Excellent texture and flavour. Well done". The original paper is somewhere in the bottom of a full box of papers that I'm too lazy to search.

I burst out laughing I think and then grinned stupidly. Another woman who had entered every cake competition (this was one of three) had won the other two ... but not this one. I had! So far I'm still alive but I keep an eye over my shoulder.

One of the women in the tent warned me that next year the WI would be visiting when they needed 500 scones ...

Here is a photo of it as the judge first saw it before we tucked in:

I must admit, it was lovely to look at and very tasty indeed. I made a second one for my Mum as she wasn't there to try the 'original' but that didn't look as nice (it had a slightly raised centre) but, paradoxically, hadn't risen as well so it was a bit heavily textured.

Anyway, I was dead chuffed as was Chris and everyone else it seems and intend to be back next year.

Sorry I've not posted for a while but I will get back on the case soon, honest!

In the meantime here is a little shameless promotion of two things:

The Maldon Art Trail which is happening at the end of September around Maldon and showcases the work of local artists in various shops, cafes and other venues in the area.

Secondly, my lovely man Chris now has his own web site to showcase his beautiful creations in calligraphy, drawing and even wood burning (or pyrography for the cognoscenti!). Have a browse and then maybe commission some beautiful piece for yourself or a friend. :)

Blocking the road

On the 12th of February (I know, it's a while back!) the main B road at the top of Goldhanger was closed to traffic for road works. This meant that all the traffic normally going along that road had to come past our house, through the village and rejoin the main road.

It was quite a shock.

After living in Brighton where traffic is a constant aural backdrop to almost every road in the city, the delicious quietness here has been a joy. This invasion of diverted traffic was a real shock with cars speeding down our small road at crazy speeds, traffic jams of 5 or 6 vehicles trying to get around parked cars and large lorries squeezing past brushing the trees.

It's a reminder of what those who live in cities have to accommodate every day.

A big catch up post

As (at least up until now) all these posts are being written some time after the events they describe I thought I'd bundle most of the ones before I started the blog together into one entry so that I can get around to letting you know more of what's going on now.

So ...

The 22nd of December was an unusual day as it was the first since moving to our cottage on the 14th where Chris was off to work and I was left alone. As a consequence, I spent most of the day sweeping outside, cleaning the lounge windows (a quick and simple job compared to those huge bay windows of Wilbury Road!), tidying the lounge, kitchen and bathroom. It was nice to get on but odd not having Chris around but it was clearly going to be a pattern I'd need to get used to.

On Christmas morning it was a first for me (but not Chris!), namely Panettone and Champagne. The Panettone was huge, though I've since seen bigger, and from Carluccio's and was delicious. We ate some as was, some with butter and some toasted. The top was crispy and tasty and the champagne went very well with it so certainly a recommended combination.

Almost a month later to the day was a sad day. Chris's Uncle Fred, who I had met only once in hospital, had died during January and on the 24th of January we found ourselves in Sawbridgeworth for his funeral. Age is a funny thing as many have observed before me - the elderly and weak man I'd met in hospital had taken to the air in over 20 planes and never landed in any of them ... he was a member of the paratroopers and a boxer of 60 fights of which apparently he'd won every one. Even at my ripe old age of 53 I still tend to think of myself as being fit and hearty well into my (even) older years but we don't know how it will go and the whole thing is quite sobering. A number of paratroopers, none of whom knew Fred personally, came to pay their respects in their uniforms and with a large banner. They said that Fred's named would be inscribed on its brass plaque. One of these men had come, on his own and with a walking frame from across the other side of London! During the funeral service the man with the banner stood silently at the front of the church with a great composure and dignity that I found very moving. It was good that Chris and I managed to chat to them in the Masonic Lodge afterwards where the post-funeral gathering was held. They were real gentlemen, every one and that was an honour I felt.

A couple of days later Chris and I went to Colchester which was a bit of a busman's holiday for Chris as he works there! We had some shopping and an appointment to keep but we had a fine time wandering around the streets of Britain's oldest recorded Roman town. We stopped for coffee in the The George, a 500 year old coaching inn which just drips character from its wonky walls, floors and ceilings to its wooden beams all through the lounge area. We were really chuffed to get taken by the manager into the bowels of the hotel, where the old bar used to be (the old counter and pumps were still there!) to see a glass panel set into the wall through which we could see the layers of soil making up the street above. Allegedly, the ash is in there from the time that Queen Boudicca razed the city to the ground some 2000 years ago! We couldn't see it ourselves ...

My Mum had visited Colchester once a long time back and could only remember a delicious meal that she had in The Cups hotel. We tried to find it to no avail ... but then a little internet searching produced this information (The Cups is mentioned about 1/4 of the way down the page with a photograph). The building in its place not far down the high street from The George is an utterly bland and featureless grey office block - criminal.

Later on we went to the Colchester museum but it was too late in the day to do it justice so we'll visit another time. It's an 11th Century Norman Keep and the largest in Europe and looked and felt great during the time we wandered around the entrance area. The next evening they had a talk about witchcraft (or perhaps witch hunting and burning) in Essex which I would have loved to have attended but it was not possible. Maybe another time if I'm lucky.

And, almost another month later, on the 22nd of February we attended a meeting in the Town Hall to discuss the Christmas Lights for 2012 in Maldon!! That was surreal.

On the 23rd we went to see Steven Spielberg's latest film, War Horse at the wonderful Rio Cinema (the site is totally written in Flash so it can be hard work and won't display on most mobile phones and tablets! Oops.) in Burnham-On-Crouch. The legroom in each of the rows of chairs in front of us was truly stupendous but we sat together on one of the enormous sofas about halfway down the length of the cinema and ate popcorn. Quietly. The film had some really beautiful moments, gorgeous scenery in Dartmoor and was an unusual tale from a horse's point of view (though not nearly as much as in the book we've been informed). It was very glamourised with a lot of filters and special effects and I felt that the final scenes would not have been out of place in Gone With The Wind.

OK. That's enough for today. More to come soon ...

Another family trip

Today we went to visit Chris's Auntie Joan. The story of how they met again after many years is something definitely best read on Chris's blog rather than me attempting to tell it.

Auntie Joan is even taller than Chris which was a surprise! We were going to visit her and her son, but also to visit her husband Fred in hospital who had been taken in a short time beforehand. The trip was straightforward but we had to wait a bit in the hospital entrance while her son Stephen parked the car which was problematic due to the number of parked cars.

We went up in the lift to the second floor where we found Fred in bed in one of the wards. Chris introduced me and Fred said hello to me, having never seen me before of course. I sat there quietly for the most part, Stephen (their son) went off to find what was going on with Fred whilst Auntie Joan chatted to Fred, a task made unnecessarily difficult as the staff had lost Fred's hearing aids and had not got him any replacements!

We stayed for about and hour or more, it's often hard to tell in hospitals where I find that time always seems to run in its own way and bears little relation to the outside world - especially true in some of the wards I visited years ago in Brighton's main hospital which had no windows and so looked the same on a brilliant summer's day or in the middle of a wild winter's night. Very confusing.

We left and hit all the evening traffic going home which meant that it was a very slow journey out of the town centre. We did though have Stephen singing along with the words to New York, New York and a few other Sinatra songs of which he'd recently learnt the lyrics!

Auntie Joan is lovely and very different to my own Mum despite being close in age. She calls me "mate", a term I don't think I've ever heard my own Mum use to address me or anyone in the whole of my life.

Visiting family

Yet more box unpacking and then we went off for a lovely social evening with Chris's sister-in-law (I think) and her mum who live in Wickham Bishops which is about 20 minutes by car from us.

I find the names of the correct family relations (nephew, niece and so on) hard enough to remember at the best of time but with so many friends of Chris's entering my life at once I lose track quite often. I'm sure I'll gradually improve.

Boxes, boxes everywhere

What a mess!

We'd slept the night with the mattress on the bedroom floor but today was bed assembly day. Ahh .. that's better. Had to be rather careful though with the lower ceilings and those long pieces of MDF.

Next big task, after breakfast of course, was to clear enough stuff from the lounge so that we could actually find a place to spread a handkerchief and perhaps, more to the point, assemble the sofabed. I have a Knole sofa which is a little curious but does make you feel very snug with the sides up and here you can see it assembled and with Chris next to it emptying boxes of books onto the bookshelf.

The plan is to sleep on the sofabed when the fire is going at the end of the night rather than sloping off to a chilly bedroom when we've already got snug in the cosy lounge. I'll let you know ...

Later that night it was off for a well earned easy evening with food and fun supplied. In other words, we went to the pub! Our little village, like so many others in England no longer has any of its original shops but does still have a church and two pubs and conveniently our cottage is about halfway between both of them but it was The Chequers to which we went tonight.

I had been to the pub when visiting Chris earlier in the year but now it was my local. It's a pub I'd happily visit even if I had to travel several miles so it's a real bonus having it on our doorstep (Hmmm - is that a bonus?). Tonight it was cosy and inviting, packed with people, a log fire burning in a large metal box fire with folding doors. We settled down with our beers after ordering some food and shortly afterwards joined in the evening's pub quiz which happens every Thursday night. We named our team as "The Two Poppadums" as the barmaid said that she'd charge the cost of the quiz to our tab as two poppadums! If it works for them ...

So, there I was after the first full day in my new home in a great pub with a roaring fire, good beer and food and the most beautiful and gorgeous man at my side. Happy indeed.

The only downer of the evening was not winning the quiz, but there's always next time. We could of course have been knocked off kilter by the jokes of Phil the landlord. I have a couple here taken from the seemingly never ending stream of them from his iPhone (Health warning - this is not Brighton and the Politically Correct approach has not yet taken hold here. Yet):

An Irish man has a new girlfriend and he's in her bedroom looking through her clothes drawers and find a nurse's outfit, a  policewoman's outfit and a school mistress's outfit. Shocked, he goes downstairs and storms out of the house saying to her as he leaves "If you can't hold down a job then I'm not interested!"

Did you hear about the man who put helium in his blow up doll so that it plays hard to get?

On these edifying thoughts I'll leave you for now...