Memories of a smoothie maker

Smoothies make me think of two things. I first discovered them, while travelling round Asia with two friends. I had known of smoothies before then, probably drunk quite a few. But these were different. They were fresh and lovely and cold and perfect for a hot humid day in Thailand. I went crazy for these smoothies. We had at least one every day, sometimes two or three. It was a real treat.

Enter the second memory. I got home from Asia and the taste of the smoothies lingered so I went out and bought a smoothie machine and got smoothie-ing. Bananas were a staple. They went into every smoothie because their texture was so fantastic and smoothie-able. The rest was anyone’s game. Strawberries one day, blueberries the next. Kiwis in the morning, raspberries in the evening. I loved it. Couldn’t get enough of it.

One morning, after a bit of a crazy night dancing on chairs in the flat I shared with friends and, inexplicably, waving towels in the air, I woke up parched. I needed a smoothie. Needed one. So I shuffled to the kitchen, bleary-eyed, threw two bananas, some yoghurt and a blueberry or two into the smoothie machine and whizzed.

It was the loudest bloody sound in the world! And it was 7am. Everyone was asleep. But it was important for me to have the smoothie. I needed it. I poured it into a mug, shuffled back to bed and lay, cradling the mug and trying to keep my eyes awake. On finishing the smoothie, I promptly fell asleep again.

Then one day, I felt ill. Quite seriously ill. I kept vomiting. I was weak and exhausted. I got in a taxi and headed for A&E and they ummed and ahhed and stuck needles in my bum and asked what I’d been eating.

“Smoothies!” I panted, exhausted. “It can’t be that. They’re really good for you.”

“Yeh, you’ve probably gone a bit too crazy with them, I think,” was the doctor’s scientific diagnoses.

Something to do with acid…? Too much citric acid…? 500 bananas a day isn’t good for you apparently…?

She’s leaving home

Except she’s going with her Dad, not a man from the motor trade. And she’s not really leaving home, she’s going home. But she’s leaving me. It feels like the end of an era. In dedication to my friend‘s time in the spare bedroom, I have put together a compilation of the best moments of her stay.

1. Wednesday evenings in front of the TV watching The Apprentice and marveling at the stupidity.

2. Tuesday evenings at the pub quiz, which we got steadily worse at the more we went.

3. Baking biscuits with Smarties in for the schoolchildren Naomi taught.

4. The time we watched Ru Paul’s Drag Race All Stars and persuaded Danda to watch the Lip Sync For Your Lives bit at the end and, despite himself, he got into it a bit.

5. The time we went out dancing to a swanky club in London town and they put on Breathe by Sean Paul and Blu Cantrell and we went crazy for it. It was less good when I asked the DJ for a bit of Beyonce and he put on some unknown song off an album or something when he totally should have played Irreplaceable or Single Ladies.

6. Getting home from work and Naomi telling me she’d woken up about two hours ago.

7. Watching First Dates and loving it. O the awkwardness, o the embarrassingly awful attempts at conversation with a complete stranger, o the hilarity.

8. Reminiscing about our travels in Asia.

9. Making marshmallows and banana cake to celebrate my new job and then eating loads of the un-set marshmallow mixture and feeling too full by the time the marshmallows where actually ready to eat.

10. Planning how we will make our millions. Because we will make them. We just have to figure out how. At one point, we decided we would write a childrens’ book and get rich and famous like JK Rowling. We still need to finish that story.

Hobbies and resolutions

The last week has been a good one for my new year’s resolutions. The travel agency I worked for in Namibia send two people over to a big travel show in the Exhibition Centre in Earl’s Court in London every February. I went to see them on Friday and Saturday and spent both days also working on their stand with them, talking to people about Namibia and Botswana and South Africa and Zambia and about when to take holidays and about whether to take anti malarials and how to travel around etc etc.

In amongst all of that, I managed to have a little chat with my old boss about my own planned trip, as per my new years resolution. The plan is as follows – a 14 day self-drive trip, seeing as much as possible, with a sprinkling of crazy fun here and there, eg, hot air balloon rides over the desert. It will have to be next year because of the following, which will happen this year.

Some friends are moving to Australia this summer so a trip to that side of the world is in order. Given that I dont often get over there, I’ll be making a stop in to see the little girls I sponsor through Plan International, in Vietnam and the Philippines, as I haven’t visited in years. This, then, covers the second of my new years resolutions, to plan a trip to Asia.

Next, I made a point to go up to the local butcher at the weekend and order a rabbit and asked him about which rabbit choice is more ethical, farmed or wild. We had a long discussion and I then ordered a rabbit, which I will pick up tomorrow. I also went up today and got two beef fillet steaks, which were amazingly soft and tender when I cooked them for dinner tonight. So that’s three new years resolutions dealt with.

Next, some fun. I got me an electric piano! Well, it’s not mine. Yet. I’m hiring it from the man in the music shop at the moment. I might decide I want to actually buy it from him at some point. I set it up immediately that I got home and got started on trying to learn How Deep Is Your Love by The Beegees.

It is tons of fun! Even Danda, who had been unsure about the whole idea until I kind of forced it on him, took a seat and gave You Are My Sunshine a go. He has the first two lines memorised. It falls apart after that.

All in all, a fabulous few days. Bring on the holidays and the rabbits!

New Year

Ok, I was up until 2am and just woke up (at 11.30am) so am feeling a bit out of it and sleepy so I can’t promise that this post will be the most inspired I have ever written!

New Year’s Eve itself ended up being a lovely mishmash of friends from different areas of my life who had never met. One friend brought her pet sausage dog so, obviously, we all giggled and cooed and bonded over that.

After a lot of sitting around, we finally started cooking, using my favourite Michel Roux cookbook, and produced an extremely tasty dish called ‘poussin scented with ginger and lemongrass.’ I liked it because it sounded a bit Mastercheffy.

The poussin was with steamed broccoli, fried rocket leaves (tastier than it sounds) rice and a sauce made from the ginger and lemongrass and leftover chicken stuff.

For dessert, we made poached cherries with rice pudding, which I cooked on high speed, as it was getting late, so wasn’t quite up to Michel’s standards. I imagine he’d eliminate me from the semi finals for my speedy cooking methods. O well. It was tasty anyway.

We then got our warm coats on and drove to Richmond Park, parking outside and walking inside, to a point we knew was quite high so we would have a fabulous view over London for the fireworks. We found ourselves a good spot and waited for the celebrations to begin.

It was fantastic when they did start. In almost every direction, in any gap between the trees, we could see fireworks displays happening in all different parts of London. We had a view to our left towards the park gate and saw, occasionally, fireworks going off in different places across Surrey. In front of us were the fireworks at the South Bank in central London, and behind us were displays in other parts of South West London. They went on for a little while and we cracked open our bottle of prosecco and passed around the single glass I had grabbed in a hurry when leaving the house, like poor students sharing bad wine before a night out.

After the fireworks displays had finished and the sausage dog had calmed down (there were lots of other dogs in the park and she had become very excited), we wandered back home and watched a bit of TV before giving up for the evening. It was all very lovely and civilised.

And now, time to make some new year’s resolutions, mainly so they are recorded somewhere so that I am obliged, sort of, to keep them. Ok, here goes.

– Plan a trip to Namibia
– Plan a trip to Asia
– Eat more ethically, especially with meat
– Finish all the books I’m in the middle of
– Revamp the wardrobe a little
– Say yes to social engagements (instead of my default setting, which is no cause I’m lazy)