Lemonlight

Boo!

Hello again, remember me? I used to write struff on this blog more than once in a blue-moon! Anyway, here I am, back again.

I've been fiddling with the style sheets of this blog again. Thing is, when I'm not restrained by a client brief or Hiltler-style corporate guidelines, I'm find the blank canvas a bit intimidating! As a result, don't be surprised if this look a bit different every time you visit. I can't make my mind up about anything.

Here's what's been happening in my oh so exciting life...

• The bedroom is being revamed and will include polyester-free, proper grown-up bedding. 300 thread-count and gorgeous. Not that I need any enouragement to take to or leave my bed.
• I am beginning to realise that I can only 'spring-clean' a room by emptying everything out into another room. This means that at any one time the house is a mixture of organised neatness and out-of-control messiness. What I think what I need is a skip to 'organise' stuff into. Or more rooms.
• I have fallen in love with my slow-cooker - it's fab coming home to a house that smells of lovely dinner - all ready to serve up and eat. (Pea and Ham soup tonight).
• Krispy Kreme Doughnuts seems to be taking over the UK, well, Southampton anyhow. I am amazed they're proving so popular, not because they aren't delish, but because they cost so much! £1.35 for a jam doughnut - thats US$2.70. For ONE. Actually that's probably a good thing, I don't see them represented very prominently on my healthy-food pyramid.
• I now have not one, but two Etsy shops! The first is selling photographs - it's unimaginatively called angiemuldowney (didn't know I was going to have my own little shop there one day when I initially registered). My second shop is called PaperPaper and I am utilising my background in graphic design to illustrate prints and cards. It feels great to be creative again, and has helped me cope with my 'day job' which is becoming increasingly non-creative.

Catching up

Firstly, hooray! We now have central heating again. Our relatively new combination boiler stopped working, and in the few days between this event and when the plumber could actually reach us we sampled life the old-fashioned, chilly way; hunkering down in front of a flaming fire (lovely), washing with freezing cold water (not lovely). But now it's fixed and I can have a good long think (in a hot, bubbly bath) about how the warmth in a house is so inviting and liberating and yet taken so much for granted. Everyone who needs it should have it. I am very lucky.

Anyway, all this contemplative thinking was making me hungry, so I thought I'd try out a Nigella recipe (from the new Nigella Express book). I tried Coq au Reisling. It was simple pimple to make and it tasted rich and delicious. I would say though that adding a whole bottle of wine and keeping the lid on whilst cooking makes for a very runny dish. If I made it again I would probably add less wine (and drink the remainder, in case it went off). I have some leftovers though, so I might try whizzing it up for a (hopefully) delicious chicken and mushroom soup.

I went out on Friday night for a friends birthday. I have to say, if given the choice I am a home-cooked-comfort-food type person every time, even if it does mean washing up. This, as opposed to being properly posh and pampered in a restaurant. Having said that, the food we had was lovely, and there was entertainment of the singing and dancing variety, so we had a great time. A little word of advice though; never let slip that you were on the country dancing squad at school - people will insist on seeing your moves, and let's face it, even when they're done well (which they weren't) they look rubbish - especially when the music is Northern Soul! At least it wasn't me who said I could moonwalk when I so obviously couldn't. Oh, hang on a moment...

It's ladies night

I think it must be autumn now as there are actually some good programmes on the TV tonight!

The first thing I'm really looking forward to watching is the new Nigella series! Lovely, lovely Nigella - I can feel the pounds piling on as we speak. This is dangerous viewing as I have issues with being able to resist temptation, especially when it comes to baked items (or any type of food come to that). So, in that respect this will be very much like watching porn... except with a plot and (probably) no nudity.

The second thing the Sky+ box is lined up to record/series-link/keep is the new series of Kath & Kim. Oh, my goodness this is so funny! Mark (who loves it too) says he finds it hard to watch as Kath is SO much like my Mum (agreed, she is) and Kim is like ME apparently (lazy, fashion victim, cruelly sarcastic) obviously he's very wrong there. If you've never watched this before and you have access to BBC2 this evening I urge you and your second best friend to grab a bottle of 'kardonay' and settle in for a night of cooking and laughing with some real foxy ladies!

D'oh!

I love the Simpsons, and this is how I would look if I was one! You have a go too, I'd love to see what you look like!

I think if I turned up in an episode I would be Marge's long-lost English cousin (as I have the hair) who gets addicted to Homer's donuts and Duff beers and ends up having to move away before having to be winched out by a specially reinforced crane. 'ttractive.

Hello, my name is Speedy González (the fastest mouse in the whole west country)

OK, confession time. When I was in Cornwall in March I returned home to find I had a freakin' speeding ticket! I never speed! Except obviously I do (doing nearly 60 in a 50 which is normally a 70 when there's not roadworks). Nearly 20 years of perfect (ahem!) driving and now I was saddled with the threat of 3 points on my license and a £60 fine. So, I filled out all the paperwork admitted my guilt and pleaded for mercy. I spent the next week wandering the streets, feeling the shame and shaking my fist at anyone doing more than 20mph. However, my unblemished record and the smiley-faces I had added to all my letter  O's obviously paid-off as I was offered an alternative to the points on my licence – a chance to do a speed awareness course instead.

If anyone's ever watched the TV series Phoenix Nights and seen the character Keith Lard (the fire prvention officer), then you'll have a good idea of how I spent three hours yesterday afternoon. The location for this event was a wildlife reserve in deepest darkest Wiltshire, a beautiful spot, aimed I guess at calming the spirits of us speedy (but not terribly speedy or we'd have just got the three points) motorists.

Will I slow down? If it means not having to sit for three hours on the hardest chairs in the world to be power-pointed into submission, then probably yes! Seriously though, I don't want to be killed by a speeding motorist, and I'm pretty sure most other people don't either. I have statistics if you need them, but in short – 30 really does mean 30.

The Good Life

I've been in so much pain lately with sciatica that I'm wondering if all that digging and general hard work in the garden was worth it! But, as the pain is subsiding now and as a scorcher of a weekend weather-wise has been forecast, I am a bit happier about the whole thing.

I think I am turning into Barbara from the Good Life because not only am I digging up all my flower beds so I can plant more vegetables, but a couple of days ago I made a skirt!  If I could manage the responsibility (and the poop) I'd go for the whole chicken and goats thing too, but I have a feeling that as soon as the weather gets a bit iffy again I'll want to be snugged up inside with a big mug of (proper) coffee to watch hours of TV stored up on the Sky+ box.

Did I mention at all how good the weather is? Well, I think a new barbeque purchase might be on the cards (us and half the country I should imagine - note to self: consider buying share in sausages v. soon). We lit our rusty old charcoal one last week. The rust wasn't a problem, I like to think it adds a certain mesquite taste. However, I think we were lucky to get away with not having a visit from the fire brigade and/or an ASBO - there was smoke everywhere! Again, apologies to neighbours.

Surely it's easier just to buy carrots in Sainsburys?

I ache now like I have never ached before; used muscles I never knew I had. And I know I am getting old because I got this way through doing gardening! In a conscious bid to be a bit more 'rocknroll' about the whole thing though, I made sure we were tuned into Radio 1 at all times... you can get a whole lot of digging done if you keep pace with Dave Pearce's Dance Anthems! My favourite song at the moment though is definitely Acceptable in the 80's by Calvin Harris - I would down tools and dance and sing when this came on (apologies to any neighbours reading).

The project was to widen the border on the sunny side of the garden - we had to fell a giant eucalyptus tree which had grown as tall as the house in about 5 years, and take out a giant and sprawling privet bush. I think the local sparrows thought we had some sort of vendetta agianst them, as these were their favourite hidey-holes, but we made up for it when we started digging and turned up lots of juicy worms for them. Feast! We also moved the stone edging and dug over everything. Ow.

So, after a bit MORE digging and muck-spreading (lovely), it'll be fresh veggies every night for dinner chez Muldowney. The spinach and lettuces will be first... maybe a couple of weeks to go, I can't wait!

One, that's one cavity! Ha ha ha!

On Saturday I went to the dentist, it's the first time I have been for over ten years so I was a tiny bit anxious. This dentist backs onto a butchers shop (renowned for its prize-winning sausages incidently), so I tried hard not to think about any Sweeney Todd type scenarios!

I was a little disappointed that there were no 14-year-old copies of Reader's Digest to while away my time in the waiting room, but I suppose being fully-conversent in how their fire-extinguisher works is a more practical use of my time.

The dentist himself was very lovely and very Latvian - think Count von Count from Sesame Street but with an angled mirror and a saliva vacuum, giving a cheery laugh every time he finds a cavity.

Actually it wasn't so bad, just one filling needed and some descaling (will they use the same stuff I put in my kettle)? This is my first visit to the dentist since 1996 - just think of all the money I have saved in that time that I can now spend on extra-chewy toffees and candy floss. Yum.

Green Day

Oh my goodness, what a stinky cold I've got! What's worse is that I have just touched the sore and broken skin around my nose with fingers that have just been de-seeding chilli peppers – passers-by must have thought an escaped babboon was loose in the house when that little episode occurred!

In my quest to be more positive about things though, at least people get out of your way when they see you with piles of bunched-up tissues in your hands. And if you can master the hideously contorted facial expression that everyone knows means "just about to sneeze", you can have the whole magazine section of Borders to yourself when you pop in after work. Nice.

On the run

Well, the treadmill is built and is in position (not by me, admittedly - don't want to overdo things though). Yes, it is kind of being used to hang clothes on right this second, but they are my running clothes, so kind of okay. I've got new trainers, jogging bottomsetc. I look the biz. No, really. I decided to take the advice of the instruction manual and take it easy to start with - I just did one km at a brisk walking pace. Jesus, I think this has been a wise purchase as it was a lot harder than I expected it to be! I didn't totally hate it though - in fact I quite enjoyed it. I guess it's been long enough now since the terrorizing school P.E. lessons. They made us run three times around the varasity-ground to WARM UP before a game of hockey, you know. Twenty odd years later it seems I am finally over it.

Not to bang on about it or anything, but these MUCH too frequent sports lessons at school were bound to kill me one way or another. If not by physical over-exertion, then by coming into contct with any of the used syringes/dog shite/used johnnies that littered the public field we had to use. We were always cheered on by local down-and-outs and the truants bunking off from the local boys' school, so I suppose that was nice. But like I say, I'm over it now!

Only five and a half years until the Olympics hit London. I'm totally ready, man - bring it on!