Happy St. Andrews Day, My Lovely Friends!!

Happy St. Andrews Day!

Ah, to take a breath without falling about in a wretched cacophony of coughing; to walk upstairs without collapsing at the top, legs stuck out over the last stair for the kids to find as they turn the corner towards me, they're shrieks of "MUMMY'S DEAD!!!" no longer ringing in my ear as I try to get up and tell them that I'm only really half dead....they'll still get their tea.

The big reveal is tomorrow. I shall put one toe, then another over my doorstep and venture into the big, bad, cold world to attend my yoga class. I think I understand, albeit slightly, what agoraphobics feel like; you get into a settled, uneasy routine at home and staying in makes you want to stay in and self fulfilling prophecies are born. In saying that, I can't wait to get out...I feel I'm escaping. The girls at yoga don't realise what a big treat tomorrow will be for me; there will be me, in a downdog, smiling like a crazy girl, whilst they look on, puzzled and grimacing, the same expression I usually wear.

Last Friday, approx. 10 days ago, just before I got ill, we had friends over for dinner. I made chicken with slightly spiced rice and a Mughlai cream sauce with toasted almonds. I served it with paratha. Beforehand, I'd put out some spicy onions and the lovely mango chutney dip I made at my party. These were served with pappadums and followed by onion bhajis.

For dessert, I made Nigella's Lemon Trifle Cake Thingy. My lemon cake was made in small tins and soaked with twice the amount of syrup as normal. A slice was plated and topped with raspberries, then topped with cream whipped with, amongst other things, Amaretto and lemon juice. Delightful.

Dessert without the cream as I was too greedy, once it was applied....to face!

The recipes will follow tomorrow as I have badges to sew onto a Cubs jumper and my sewing is like my singing voice.......

One of the drawings I was asked to do for Christmas gifts....just so you know I've not been entirely idle....

Guest Blogging and Sunshine

I slept like the proverbial baby last night couldn't have been MY babies they were talking about and woke up to the sun shining from the sky. Hurrah! It's still minus 20 but the young lassies will be out in flip flops, shorts and fake tan, ignoring the goosebumps, the blue toes and tsk, tsk tsking from the grannies passing by.

Lucy and Fraser woke me up with a cup of tea and a plate of ginger nuts...can you believe that. I was so amazed at having slept, so chuffed with my kind children that my head started to get around the fact that today, today I could merrily skip to the shops, stop off for coffee and possibly even go up a hill. I even rode the banister down the stairs with a merry 'weeeeeeeeeeeee' to find a forlorn looking lass pouting up at me, clutching her tummy.

Crash and burn, thoughts, crash and burn. So Kelly stayed at home. I questioned her for a moment but Kelly always goes to school, hating to miss anything and once we'd established that nothing was wrong at school, I looked at her pale face and tucked her into a blanket, resigning myself to the house.

It gave me a chance to package up these lovely little gifts from Snapdragon's Garden for my bloggy peeps; the last batch of Scottish lovelies went missing in transit, apparently some little bint somewhere is rubbing my tartan all over her house and 2 months later, I received my double surance: insurance and an assurance from the mailing company that the next batch would be safe. Nuh uh. These little beauties are being posted by my very own hands. Keep your eyes peeled.

I was asked to guest host a blog today by the lovely Charlotte at noteasilyoffendedmoms. As you can guess by the title, it isn't a blog for the faint hearted but definitely worth a look if you can stand the pace. She gave me three subjects to consider: sex, religion and/or politics. Hmmmm. Subjects that normally leave me in palpitations. Of course, having the opportunity to spew my diatribe all over someone elses page with permission didn't leave me thinking for too long. But I warn you now.

I plan to make some pakora and paratha bread for Lyn as she is having a weekend curry feast. I'll also be making some Parmesan crusted mini quiche tonight and will let you know how it turns out. Amazing what you can do with cheese, eggs and flour. Illness always spawns requests for chicken noodle soup and macaroni cheese so that is what is on the menu for the children; if they like the quiche, then supper is sorted.

Back to normal soon as Brian returns tomorrow night from his wanderings and I finally have Time returned to me.