busy, busy, busy

I've been quite enjoying the wintery weather lately but will admit that our flat is freezing.

I'm stubbornly refusing to put the heating on and am opting for wearing copious layers instead. The cats are seeking out new cosy corners and Poppy, as you can see, is becoming an expert tent maker. She can make a shelter for herself out of just about anything now. What a sweetheart.

Graham had the last few days off work and we've been kept pretty busy. On Saturday night I made us a fancy dinner. We had parsnip and parmesan soup to begin with. I should confess that Graham had actually made and frozen that earlier in the week so I had nothing to do with its deliciousness!

For the main course, I made these cheese and herb fritters with sweet pepper marmalade and rocket. Yum yum yum. But so much cheese! The recipe is by Delia and you can find it here.

I love Masterchef (well, I love Greg Wallace really!) and am always intrigued by the 'risky' chocolate fondants the competitors make so I decided to try my hand at them for dessert. I looked on the internet for a recipe and ended up using Nigella's (found here, scroll right to the bottom of the page) because it was described as the best chocolate pudding and simple too! The first one I turned out of the oven collapsed a bit (just like they usually do on Masterchef so I took it as a sign that I wasn't too far wrong!) but the second one, just for having sat in the tin for an extra 30 seconds, was perfection! I gave that one to Graham, just to be polite, but mine tasted just as good. It was exciting to try making a 'classic' pudding like that and (oh!) they were so, so delicious! I will definitely be making them again.

After dinner we played Trivial Pursuit. We had played earlier in the week and I won (I also won Scrabble that night which is a RARE occurrence indeed!) so this was like a rematch. I was in the lead all the way round but kept getting pink questions in the middle (I like green and brown questions, and blue and yellow are alright but I am useless at pink and beyond useless at orange) and Graham ended up winning, with me just two spaces behind. Oh well...

On Sunday we went through to Erskine to go to this lady's 90th birthday party! This is Jenny a.k.a. Gran (to Graham) a.k.a. G.G. to her great grandchildren.

Here she is having a dance with Graham's mum. Graham's mum never stops singing and dancing. I mean literally never. It was the first time I had met some of Graham's more extended family. We had lunch in the pub and then went back to his mum and dad's house for more drinks and chat. It was a fun day.

Yesterday, Graham and I went for a wander round some of the charity shops in Partick. I got some curtains to chop up for material, a Malcolm Gladwell book and a Marguerite Patten cook book because the design in it is amazing. I will try to share photos at some point. I also bought a vintage dress, from a vintage clothes shop which sells things at about half the price of most charity shops. I'm getting a bit miffed at all the £30 plus "vintage" and "retro" price tags (with no consideration for the niceness or quality of the item) in charity shops. Graham got a jumper. The photo above is a fabulous permanent window display in a tailor's shop on Chancellor Street. I love it!

In the evening, we went to the Old Fruitmarket to see (swoon!) Richard Hawley. Look how pretty the venue was, with all its lights and old signs. We had a bit of trouble finding the entrance which was fortuitous as it meant we found Richard Hawley himself having a fag out the back! I was far too shy to talk to him so I just stared with my mouth hanging open, grabbing Graham's arm a lot. I do love Richard Hawley quite a lot :)

We went to see Richard Hawley last year (or maybe it was two years ago, since I don't seem to have mentioned it on the blog?) in the City Halls and I thought it was amazing. It was honestly like stepping back in time, to an under the sea themed dance or something, all spangly curtains and mirror balls and beautiful songs about trains and ship wrecks and romance. Sigh... This time it was a bit more low key but his voice is just so incredible (it really does make me swoon!) that he couldn't possibly disappoint. My main wish for the night was that someone would be there playing a saw... and they were! I think the saw is one of my favourite musical instruments. We were up on the balcony and it was so much fun to watch the audience, who were a real mix of people but included quite a few older folks. There was an old lady (who was 75 if she was a day) sitting right in the middle of the front row. She had pure white hair and was wearing a pair of fingerless gloves, even though it was really pretty warm. When Richard Hawley started playing Open Up The Door (from the new album) she started punching the air with glee and looking round at everybody with a huge grin on her face, then sat staring at him all lovelorn and hypnotised. It was so much fun to watch her. I also saw the lady who ran the embroidered textiles classes that I did at the art school a few years ago, proving the theory that we were guaranteed to know at least one person there. The story behind those classes, if you're interested, is here.

So it has been a busy few days, meaning that I haven't made any progress with my shopify shop or with the job applications I'm in the middle of. I have a few more plan b jobs to apply for and a plan a interview next week. Fingers crossed :)