The Way of the Wombat

Starting with the second part of my subject line, gillo posted a link to þā Engliscan Wikipǣdie!

This is not a Wiki page about Old English - it is Wikipedia written in Old English/Anglo Saxon. Anyone interested in languages will love it - as will any of my Tolkienrim friends with an interest in the Rohirrim.

Secondly - I have continued with the 'new recipe a month' project. This is another one from all those Good Food magazines D-d treated me to last year. Nothing very complicated, but certainly tasty and worth repeating, this month I made bacon & ricotta oven-baked frittata.

Very easy to make, clear instructions, and it came out just as it should. ( Look.... )

My back is a lot better now, too. I am still treating it with a lot of care though.

Yesterday evening S2C, D-d and I went out for a meal with a friend from a very long time ago. When we lived in the NE of England we had a group of friends with whom we played D&D every week. One of that group, whose mother used to babysit D-d when she was a baby, was visiting the island for TT with friends and got in touch.

So we three, and Alan and the two friends he was camping with, met at our favourite Chinese restaurant and had a lovely evening. One of the guys did something I've never thought of doing in a Chinese restaurant - he had lobster.

I thought you might like to see it -



It was, he says, as yummy as it looks.

My Char Sui with Chinese leaves and fried rice was very yummy too - but I only took a picture of the lobster.

We were amazed to find that the old D&D group still meets every Wednesday - so it has been going strong for well over 30 years!

This is especially for cairistiona7 and her husband - he was very worried, at the state of my fridge in the previous post, that S2C and I were in danger of starving to death...

But I have now been shopping so it looks a bit healthier;



There are extra flavours of yoghurt, blueberries, a couple of mangoes in the door shelf, cooked meats, different cheeses,fish, sausages, bacon, chicken, salads, rhubarb, asparagus, other vegetables, a selection of fruit juices...

Also worth remembering is that we also live within 5 minutes walk of a small supermarket that sells fresh fruit and veg, fresh meat, bread, dairy and so on...

A few pictures to illustrate the week.

Actually the first one is from last Sunday. It was the church AGM - and like most such, it is necessary, but not a lot of people want to be bothered attending. So we have the bribe of a free lunch... home made soup, with bread, and dessert - under the cut is a picture of the pudding as it was very pretty.

( Meringue... )

On Tuesday I was on my way to do a couple of home visits down south, and stopped in Castletown to eat my sandwich lunch.

This is the view across the harbour to the castle -

( More pics... )

Wednesday evening and my sister e-mailed me with the news of my niece's engagement - a nice thing. But it must have distracted me because within ten minutes of getting that news I had managed to break the catch on the back gate when I went to take the bin in, and then snap the handle on one of the kitchen cupboards!

The cupboards have been there for about 15 or 16 years - S2C fitted them himself. So getting a matching handle was not an option. I must admit that a couple of times I have thought that new handles would 'modernise' the whole kitchen, but I never got further than a vague thought. But now it has to be done - because one odd handle would look very odd. So I have been to B&Q and bought 14 new handles... 13 to use, and a spare.

I have taken a picture showing the first new handle in place, replacing the broken one, with the old one on the next cupboard -

( what do you think? )

It was a tiring week at work because I had another nurse with me - and somehow explaining what you are doing, as you do it, is twice as tiring as doing it - even though I do really quite enjoy explaining, too. So,; the last clinic of the week was on Friday, in Ramsey. The other nurse headed back south when we finished, but I was meeting friends for an early evening dinner in Ramsey.

I thought I would sit and read for half an hour before going to meet them - and I managed to fall asleep! Just shows it was a tiring week. I was only about 15 minutes late, thankfully, and had a very nice meal at The Harbour Bistro. Had I been more alert I would have taken a picture of my rum-flavoured creme caramel so that this post would be bookended by puddings - but sadly I forgot...

Much love to all the other Mums on my friends' list - I know the Moms get their day later in the year, but we celebrate Mothering Sunday today, the mid-point of Lent.

I have had a very special day - I will share a few pictures under the cut.

First was church - a special service as Mothering Sunday is part of the church calendar, not just a secular celebration. Traditionally the children and their leaders take this service at our church - so I was leading, and it all went well. Some churches make little posies for the mothers in the congregation, but we have a big basket of chocolate to give to the mothers - it was nice to have D-d there to take some for me!

After church came my special treat. A steam-train trip and lunch, especially for Mothering Sunday.

( I'll cut here for pics of the train... )


And now I have chocolate and honey cake to nibble on through the evening - all in all a very nice day.

Burns' Night was, officially, 25th January - i.e.the anniversary of the birth of the poet Robert Burns. But we usually celebrate it on the nearest Saturday evening, so it was our Burns' Night Supper last night.

When I say 'ours', it is our church that organises what our toastmaster (who is also the Speaker of the House of Keys) calls 'not only the Island's Premier Burns' Night event - but the Premier Social Event of the year'. Perhaps he exaggerates a little - but it is a big event and a chance for us to put on our glad-rags and eat in one of the best hotels on the island.

This year there were about 90 guests, many of the men in kilts, most of the others in Evening Dress, all of the ladies in evening wear, although not all in full-length. And it was absolutely pouring with rain, the wind was a steady 35mph with gusts up to 60 - and the hotel in question is on the seafront.

I dropped S2C, D-d, her partner (useful male from work who is not, she points out, currently a boyfriend) at the door and had to park a little way away - only about 20 - 30 yards as it happens - but I was still soaking wet from the bottom of my coat to the bottom of my dress...

We had to do our utmost to make sure D-d didn't get wet as she was one of the speakers! There are a series of traditional toasts and replies at a Burns' Night Supper and one of these, at a Burns' Night outside Scotland, is 'To Our Adopted Homeland'. This was being proposed by HRH The Lieutenant Governor (the representative of The Queen, Lord of Mann - like the Governor General of Australia or Canada, but on a smaller scale!) - and D-d made the reply on behalf of the Manx - a five minute speech.

She did really well but, sadly, I was so busy listening I forgot to take her picture! However she looked very pretty in a full length red dress with her hair falling in its natural curls.

There is however, as always, a picture of the pudding ( Under the Cut... )

Unrelated - how wonderful is it that one of the experts on Time Team is called Dr Helen Geake?

And did you know that the reason we serve lemon with fish has nothing to do with flavour, but that in the Middle Ages it was thought lemon juice was the best thing to dissolve fish-bones - so the wedge of lemon was to suck if you got a bone caught in your throat? I learnt that factlet from The Unbelievable Truth on Radio 4 - even their comedy programmes are educational - they just can't help it! They were also taking the micky out of fifty shades of Grey... how wonderful is Radio 4?

This week's pictures were taken before we came home from York. D-d having lived there for 5 academic years has a good working knowledge of the city that the visitor just doesn't have. So she knows some of the 'hidden gems'. We took breaks to eat in two of them - and I remembered to get out the camera. So under the cut are pictures of two historic buildings - with food!

( click for the pics )

Tomorrow D-d sets off to travel all summer. I will try to distract myself with writing. I'll have to - I still haven't finished the Tolkien BigBang story and it's due in a couple of weeks or so! Still, it's at almost 16,000... I'm sure I'll make it. Well, pretty sure!