Time on my hands

So I have been reading, and its a great way to let your mind wander away, well my mind. Though I am sure that some of you would agree my mind well wanders away enough on its own and probably clearly needs parental supervision anyway...

Here is what I have been reading over the past couple of weeks -

Mary Reilly - Valerie Martin

The Chocolate Run - Dorothy Koomson

Going Dutch - Katie Fforde

Cents & Sensibility - Maggie Alderson

Those Faraday Girls - Monica McInerney

And currently, but not for much longer...

How to Kill your Husband - Kathy Lette

What..! I mean nothing, its Kathy and she is damn hilarious, so there!

Lizzy's Lodge

One bright sunny Saturday in June, at the hight of a London summer, 5 of us trooped off to see Buckingham Palace or Lizzie's Lodge as I have come to affectionately call the place. After all I do work around the corner and live less than an hours walk away. Though still awaiting my invite to afternoon tea...hmmm.

Anyways Matt, Me, and a couple of my girlfriends from my last job, Shauna, Jade and Sam made an afternoon of the summer opening of the Palace. We arrived via St James Park and walked along to the gates at the side of the palace.

We were then, checked, herded and screened via security, de-phoned and de-cameraed (not physically, but the threat was there), before being hustled and bustled through to be plugged up to enable us progress silently with our own little audio guides through the staterooms of the glorious palace.

Glorious indeed, such a well maintained palace, and it has to be, as bits of it seem to fall off quite randomly it seems, with a piece of the roof to have apparently nearly hit Princess Anne not that long ago. Its very sparkly and very detailed, and gold, gold and more gold.

My favourite room was not the banquet hall done up to within an inch of its life for a state banquet (also where Jade got most publicly berated when her mobile - oh the shame - went off), but the gallery. The gallery was a purpose built room for George IV to house all his paintings, and it is very revered as it has paintings by Rembrandt, Holbein, Rubens and even a painting by my much favoured Johannes Vermeer - The Music Lesson. The music room was also a favourite, as it had the most beautifully decorated ceiling.

Following on from that would be the life sized statue at the bottom (pun intended) of the Ministers staircase, of Mars & Venus (by Antonia Canova)whereby Mars has a very nice bottom indeed...hehhe

I have included a few photos of the Palace, well the outside anyway, as per the standard... no photos allowed.

Me, with Jade, Sam & Shauna
The Palace verhanda...needs a better roof though...
The garden, not a Hills hoist to be seen
The back of the Palace
Gorgeous tree in the garden
View from behind the pond back to the house

Get in ma belly...........

Randomly thinking, since I am not eating all that much at the moment, I am entitled to gorge myself on comfort foods.

This had me thinking of what exactly my comfort foods were, so I started thinking and writing and thinking a bit more, and it ended up that, these are ..."a few of my favourite things...", and not necessarily in any particular order.

- Raisin toast, or brown toast for that matter with lots of butter and hot, hot, hot

- Tim Tams, especially with a nice cup of tea

- Roast dinner, beef or lamb, with all the trimmings, roast potato, pumpkin, sweet potato, carrots, broccoli, beans, cauliflower cheese, gravy and a great big Yorkshire pudding, with a pint of Cider

- Freshly cooked hot chips, soggy with lots of chicken salt and tomato sauce

- Tomato or Pumpkin Soup or Sweet Potato...(OK insert any soup here, except for Pea & Ham and French Onion...)with toast and obligatory slatherings of butter

- Ham and cheese toasty toasties...and if you have to ask me what that is, well you are just missing out!

- Baked beans on toast...Heinz only, English original Heinz only at that, no BBQ sauce, no Organic, just original.

- Kettle chips in sea salt and balsamic vinegar, making my mouth water!!

- Bacon sandwiches with lots of tomato sauce

- Proper muesli with Greek yogurt and honey, and that is full fat yogurt thank you very much!

- Fresh hot cinnamon donuts (reminds me of after grocery shopping treats when I was little, thanks to my Mum)

- Cherry Ripes, and the new double dipped 70% cocoa Cherry Ripes, are divine! Usually I would say a classic is always the best, but well this is a first for a new version being better than the original.

- Hot chocolate on a really cold day, even better with marshmallows, the big fluffy Pascall ones you get in Aus.

- A damn good, well cooked piece of steak and by that I mean medium rare (more rare than medium) and if its Wagyu beef all the better, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

- Any big stew with lots of vegetables and meat with a tomato based sauce, I am there, slow cooked is the best!

Oh and you know I could go on, your suggestions are welcome, as there is always, always plenty I could add to this list!!

Flowers everywhere.....

The tributes to my Mum, lots of beautiful flowers, thank you all very very much.