Treehouses, pirate ships and flamenco dresses

After a bit of a rollercoaster week, I spent yesterday with some friends and their children. Children are the perfect antidote to sadness. Especially these ones.

We went to a National Trust property called Anglesey Abbey and walked around the extensive grounds.

At the end of this path we found….

A treehouse!

Molly playing hide and seek on the top floor of the treehouse.

Top floor!

Up in the trees 🙂

Further along the path, we found a pirate ship and everyone got straight to dressing up!

Danda and Molly in pirate gear… Ella in a doctor’s jacket and a blue sparkly skirt….. Not your normal pirate outfit but who am I to criticise?

She was the ship’s cook, apparently.

The Abbey from afar.

Just because we got home, doesn’t mean dressing up time has finished. Out comes the flamenco dress and little Molly starts busting out the moves.

Treehouses, pirate ships and flamenco dresses. Just an average day with the children.

The bucket of fat

The other day I was in work. It was quite busy. Not rushed-off-your-feet busy. Just I-need-a-cup-of-tea-now busy. We got the food delivery in and, as usual, we started to unpack some stuff into the display fridge, put some stuff away, etc.

There was a huge bucket and when we opened it to look inside, we saw the slightly cloudy water that the poached chicken has been cooked in. Great, put that in the kitchen and I’ll unpack the chicken into tubs, when I get a chance.

Cakes went on stands, cheese went in fridges and salads went in bowls. It was all looking fab and under control. I went to the kitchen and that’s when we got loads of orders. There I was, heating, pouring, chopping, plating, and the bucket of chicken stood on the side, in my way, while I struggled to find time to deal with it. On and on it went, every time my hands went to the bucket to unpack the chicken, an order came in.

It was big and in my way but I didn’t want to move it out of the way, for fear I’d forget to deal with it.

Finally, I got the lid off. Then about four orders came in. I dealt with them and sent them out and then there I was again, alone with the bucket of chicken, finally. I was going to do this! Nothing could stop me.

Now, I don’t know how many of you are frequent poachers of chicken but it’s a fabulous way to cook it. It’s a lot more moist than roasting or frying. But as the chicken takes on the moisture from the water, so it releases some of its fat. So what you end up with is a pan of beautifully cooked chicken, floating in a sea of slightly discoloured water with fatty blobby bits on the surface. Should this water then cool down a little, the fatty blobby bits merge together to form misshapen white islands bobbing about on the top of the water. It’s not pretty, as you can imagine.

So this bucket of chicken had the inevitable floating blobby fat islands on its surface and the water itself was quite cloudy, so that I couldn’t even see the chicken in the bottom. It was a huge bucket, which was wierd because they never usually sent this much chicken. They usually sent a far smaller bucket.

Anyway, I got out two tubs to transfer the chicken into. I wrote the date on them, so we’d know when it came in.

I rolled up my sleeve… And plunged my hand into the fatty watery pit, to seek out the chicken from the depths below.

I swished my hand around. And around. I felt right to the bottom, around the edges. I swirled around in the fat-water. Around and around. And I didn’t happen upon a single peice of chicken. Not one. Puzzled, I kept swishing my hand around.

And then it dawned on me. They’d obviously made a mistake at the other deli, where they cook the food. They’d sent us this instead of chicken. They’d got mixed up, kept the chicken and sent us the bucket of water they cooked it in, clearly meant for throwing away.

So now, here I am, elbow deep in a bucket of fat, for no reason. A chickenless bucket of fat. With my sleeve up around my arm. The floating fat islands gently colliding with my forearm as I plunge around desperately, looking for poached chicken. Poached chicken which is not in this bucket. This massive bucket of fat.

It was not my finest hour.

Danda and the frittata

“Danda,” said I, one day. “I have just discovered frittatas. They are fabulous and so tasty. I like to cook for people. I would like to make you a frittata.”

Danda, looking uncertain, asked “Will I like it? What’s in it?”

“You will love it,” I declared. “I will make an extra tasty one, I promise.”

He decided to trust me and I got to work. In went the potatoes, some mushrooms, some ham, a bit of onion and garlic, seasoning. I fried it all for a few minutes then poured whisked egg over the top. I let it cook for a bit before putting the whole thing under the grill to finish.

Ta da! A beautiful frittata. I got plates and cutlery and took it to Danda. The kitchen was cold that day so Danda had decided to eat in the front room.

I put the pan onto the footrest thingy and cut Danda a slice of the frittata. I put it on a plate and presented it to him.

“This looks great. Thanks so much,” said Danda, leaning back onto the chair and putting his feet up onto the footrest…..

Frittata on footrest….. Foot on footrest…. Frittata on floor…..

There was a moment of silence as he looked at me in fear. I tried to stifle my laughter so as not to encourage this kicking-food-on-the-floor habit. It didn’t work. Hysterics gripped us both as we scooped the sad little frittata back into the pan and tried to decide if we could apply the 3 second rule.

O, Danda……

A dedication to my childhood friend

My favourite friend when I was a little girl at school had blond hair, like me. She was a little bit short, like me. And we were always together. People used to mix us up.

One time we swapped shoes for fun at breaktime and forgot to swap them back. Our parents were quite annoyed at us when we went home with the wrong shoes on.

We used to play with two dinosaur shaped erasers, one blue and one green. The game we played consisted of us burying the dinosaurs at break time then coming back at lunch time and digging them up. It was a pretty good game, if I remember rightly. We were about six years old and inseparable.

When we were about nine or ten, my favourite friend said she was moving away. They were moving Wales, which was the other side of the world for all I knew! I now know that it was essentially just down the road, a few hours at most. But then, it was the most far away place I could imagine. I was pretty gutted.

A few years of letter-writing later and we planned a visit. My mum drove a friend and I to her house and we stayed overnight. It was hilarious. We ‘made’ a Ouija board and made out we were terrified of looking in the mirror at midnight. We giggled and pulled our stuff into the front room, away from the mirrors, to sleep.

A few years later, my friend came to Liverpool to stay over. Another friend was there too and we had great fun. The next visit was a few years later, when my friend came to look at the university in Liverpool on an open day.

Then I left for Africa and lost contact with most people. I then went to university in Glasgow for a bit and one day, I decided to try texting her old phone number. She was still using it! Amazing! A bit of catch up and lunch in Liverpool next time I was back re-established the friendship.

Next thing I knew, I was back and forth travelling quite a bit before settling into a different course in London and we start emailing again. She’s in Thailand, teaching! Perfect. I had just started sponsoring a little girl in Viet Nam and was really keen to visit her. So I planned a trip to see my little sponsor girl in Viet Nam and my friend in Thailand. It was one of the best trips I’ve ever been on. It was such fun.

The next year, after she had returned to England, I went back to Asia with a friend and she came for two weeks of our trip. That was in 2007. She moved to Hungary for a few years next.

I don’t think we’ve seen each other since then. We’ve been friends a long time now. Over twenty years. I don’t think I’ve known anyone (excluding family) for that long!

And then, a few months ago, my friend Facebooked. She had a place on a postgraduate course at my old university, down the road!

This is very exciting. For a whole year, my childhood best friend will be living down the road, instead of across the world.

Tonight, she is coming for dinner. I am preparing a feast. When I get excited, I cook. I hope I don’t burn everything now, in a frenzy of excitement and forgetfulness.

Best revision method yet

There a billions of cases to remember and I got in the habit of making up little stories to try and remember the names and it really works. The sillier the story, the more likely I am to remember it. I’ll give you some examples without looking at my notes…

Wayne Rooney on the phone = R v Wain
A case where a guy did a telethon to raise money then gave cheques to the charity for the amount and they bounced and he had spent the money that was raised. Convicted of theft.

Lloyd Grossman on TV = R v Lloyd
Theft of films from a cinema by a person who worked there. He brought them back so he wasn’t said to have the intention to permanently deprive. No theft.

“Chill, man” = Chan Man-Sin v Attorney General for Hong Kong
As in “Chill, man, I thought the bank would give you the money back.” This one was a real stretch of my imagination! Guy wrote cheques and withdrew money on company’s overdrafts. He said it wasn’t an intention to permanently deprive because he knew the banks would refund the money when they found out it had been stolen. Convicted of theft.

It’s cloudin’ over, must get supplies from Waitrose = R v Clouden
Another stretch. This is for robbery – force can be applied to property, it doesn’t need to be against the person. In this case the person’s shopping bag was snatched. Shopping, Waitrose, cloudin’ over, see what I did?

The Scarlet Pimpernel is always the goodie so must be in self-defence = R v Scarlet
From this case, we get the legal principle that if acting in self defence there is no crime.

Living in a caravan’s not very classy = R v Klass
In this case, the burglars forced the door of a caravan with poles but entered the caravan without them to steal. No aggravated burglary, no weapons at time of entry.

Addams Family running a shop = R v Gomez
Defendant worked in a shop, bought some things with cheques which bounced, convicted of theft.

It’s dangerous in church = R v Church
The test for dangerousness in unlawful act manslaughter.

Franklin the tortoise wouldn’t be naughty (he’s a character in a children’s book) = R v Franklin
No crime = no unlawful act manslaughter.

Hopefully I don’t start laughing in the exam from the silliness of the stories I’ve made up to remember things. Last exam today! Wish me luck!

I solemnly swear to tidy up the front living room when my exams are finished. And to do the dishes. And to wear clothes instead of jarmies. And to cook. And to stop living off crackers. And to stop drinking instant coffee. And to exercise. And to put all my law books in one box so they are not on every single surface.