Just a thought

Another thing I learned on my cookery course: Peel ginger with a tea spoon. How did I get to be quite grown up without knowing that?

And here's one I should have made earlier

Some time ago, Mike bought me a voucher to attend a course at a cookery school. Actually, it was a very pleasant evening in Bristol where I drank some wine and chopped an onion whilst listening to the teacher/cook talk about her experiences of cooking on yachts sailing the Med and in the Caribbean and the differences between Southern Indian (less hot, more coconut and fruit, not so much cumin) and other styles of Indian cooking. We then ate the meal-and drank more wine. Anyway, finally, I got round to reproducing the recipes at home. Here is the proof.A Southern Indian banquet! It was good-even if I say so myself!

Back to Aldeburgh

Not literally back to Aldeburgh, unfortunately, but,just to add to our account of the Aldeburgh Experience, here are a few photos. All credit to Naomi and her smart new lens and sharp eye.

The Scallop, by Maggie Hambling, stands on the shingle beach, so, as you approach it you are walking towards the sea. The quote is from Britten's opera, Peter Grimes and reads, "I hear those voices that will not be drowned." Hambling was born in Suffolk and the work was made by local craftsmen Sam and Dennis Pegg. All in all then a perfect piece of public sculpture, appropriate to the environment, its history and culture and not just plonked there in a fit of absent mindedness (now,where was it that I put that piece of twisted metal?) or civic hubris.

Here we go!

We have just placed our Birmingham apartment with a rental agency-the first step towards moving to Spain for 18 months (actually step 37 in Mike's list-see above-but certainly the most significant so far.)

We also had out English weekend in Aldeburgh,Suffolk, thanks to Naomi and Martin who bought us this for a Christmas present. It's a part of England I have never visited before and it is lovely and quintessentially English-teashops and craft shops, pubs with real fires and even realer beer, little cottages (for little people-Mike spent the weekend walking round bent at the waist!)and fish and chips in large portions. We walked by the sea to see Maggie Hambling's wonderful sculpture (see link here-http://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/content/articles/2004/11/08/scallop_aldeburgh_feature.shtml) and then followed the river through the mud flats and back into the village past the very English allotments. It is a good memory to take with us.