So, there I was minding my own business, waiting for Suzy to come and molest me in her usual manner and up popped an email from luscious Elaine (mmm, mutual linky love). She was fighting her Haloscan comments, trying to persuade them that looking like the rest of her blog, designed by web diva Krystyn, would be just a dandy idea. However, Haloscan was having none of it. As my comments window was red and delicious like my blog, could I help?

I could give it a try, certainly. CSS and I have an interesting relationship. One where it sits there being all clever in people’s source code and I run around stealing it, smashing it to a pulp, making it do roughly what I want, all the while not quite knowing what I’m doing, but still managing to look very clever and pretty.

Elaine gave me her login information - password “sarahisagoddess” - and I promised to backup what was already there before fiddling with it all. Two changes later I actually remembered to do what I’d promised. Heh. Don’t tell her.

I changed a few colours. Clicked to preview and nothing had changed. Bastards. Eventually I saw that the preview button was only for looking at saved changes. Heh. Don’t tell her.

Things began to go right as I bludgeoned them mercilessly with sheer luck my great talent. Meanwhile, Suzy had arrived, had bitten and licked me, performed questionable gymnastics on the floor next to me and generally behaved like a two-year-old desperate for attention. Attention I wasn’t giving her because Elaine was sitting at her computer across the other side of the Atlantic telling me I was spiffy. And my love is bought with things like that … and this.

Ladies and jellyspoons, I give you Miss Nelly!

She’s so shiny.

That was a pretty good week. Professionally I feel like I achieved more than usual; there wasn’t time to wonder whether I was putting my 10 GCSEs and 3 A Levels to good use - a thought which plagues me from time to time, before being temporarily quieted with chocolate liqueur.

I did some important translations, found various sound files needed for John’s editing and … did other things which were obviously so important that I’ve forgotten them. There was a phone message from a friend telling me to check my mail, which made me smile, as I have evidently succeeded in giving the impression that I don’t actually live in front of my computer. On a chair that, frankly, smells of arse.

On Friday evening Suzy and I went out for dessert at Frankie & Benny’s. And that’s the first time I’ve ever remembered the name of the restaurant on the first go. We have a tendency to pick which ever two names come to mind first. Bongo & Jimmy, for example. We shared a Boston Brownie, which is a chocolate brownie for two, covered in chocolate sauce, cream, toffee pieces, berries, ice cream and meringue. It looks something like this:

But not for long.

We asked for different spoons, ate our brownie, drank our Cokes-with-no-ice, talked incessantly, laughed loudly, made plans to become stowaways on a boat, danced to the background music, compared our respective hormonal instabilities and loudly sang “happy birthday” to whoever it was who was being presented with a cake.

We also discussed what to do for my birthday in November (no particular day, I’ll claim the whole month). Lauren was whisked off to New York at the last minute for her birthday this week and is due back today. I’m left wondering if her fiancé would take me there too when my birthday comes along. I don’t see why not.

If you have a trundle through the archives of this here blog, you will see that in previous years I’ve gone on and on about my little vegetable patch, proudly displaying its progress and eventual harvests.

I grew veg in my plot this year too, but the harvest was, well, crap. I blame very dry weather, birds, rubbish seed, going away for a fortnight and other things which can’t possibly be my fault.

This year’s crop was meant to be a lot of sweetcorn. Only, either the birds ran off with my seed (see above), it was bad seed (see above) or they needed more water (see above). I ended up with a paltry 3 seedlings, even after I had replanted half the patch with my remaining seed. And then, in the course of my weeding, I managed to dig up one of the seedlings. Because evidently somehow, in the six years since I left school, I’ve managed to mislay an alarming amount of intelligence.

So, two plants it was, which was at least going to make it more difficult for aliens to hide in my crop, thereby allaying that particular self-inflicted fear. I shook their tassles atop the plants, watered them almost mercilessly and in return they grew 2 nice cobs, plus a runt of a cob that’s barely worth mentioning.

Eventually, pulling back the husks and squeezing one of the niblets produced a creamy liquid rather a watery spurt, indicating that they were ready to eat. I left the cobs on the plant until tea was being prepared, giving them very little time to start converting their sugar to starch before Mum threw them into the pan.

They were delicious; definitely something to try again next year.

Yesterday Helen, Suzy and I descended upon Lauren’s delightful abode in order to drop food and wine onto her carpet, exchange gossip, abuse Dave, take photos of each other and loll about in the sunshine. That done, we headed home again.

Seeing as you couldn’t be there, here’s a recipe and some photos from the afternoon so that you can recreate the experience wherever you are. Bear in mind that, without my luminous presence, you can only hope to produce a pale imitation of the fun and gaiety we had.

Savoury picnic bread

Serves: 8
Prep: 2hrs 15 mins
Cook: 35-40 mins

400g white bread flour
7g dried yeast
handful fresh thyme
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp chilli oil*
225g chorizo sausage
160g sun dried tomatoes
1 red onion, thinly sliced
75g pine nuts, lightly toasted
175g Gruyére cheese, grated

* I found that the chilli oil made things far too spicy for my taste. This time I simply used all olive oil, but next time I’m going to try substituting the chilli oil for a tablespoon of the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes.

1. To make the dough, mix together the flour, yeast, thyme and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and add 1 tbsp chilli oil and 2 tbsp olive oil and 250ml warm water. Using a round-bladed knife, mix the ingredients to form a soft dough. If the dough feels dry, add a little water, sparingly.

2. Turn out onto a lightly-floured surface and knead for about 10 mins, until the dough is smooth and elastic. Place in a large, lightly-oiled bowl. Cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place for about 1 hr, until the dough has doubled in size.

3. Meanwhile, skin and thinly slice the chorizo sausage and roughly chop the tomatoes. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan and fry the sausage along with the onion and pine nuts for about 3 mins until they are just starting to colour. Leave to cool completely.

4. Using a floured hand, punch the risen dough to knock out the air bubbles. Turn out onto a floured surface, knead lightly then roll out to a 30cm square. Spread with the sausage and onion mixture so the ingredients are evenly dispersed. Scatter with the chopped tomatoes, then sprinkle with the cheese.

5. Grease a loose-bottom, round cake tin. Roll up the dough, swiss roll style, so that the filling is enclosed. Using your hands, gently squeeze the dough to elongate it until it measures about 50cm in length. Then, with a lightly-floured, sharp knife, slice the dough roll into 8 equal pieces.

6. Preheat the oven to Gas 6. Arrange the dough, cut ends up, in the greased tin, spacing them out evenly. The dough will rise during proving to fill any gaps. Cover with a piece of oiled cling film and leave in a warm place for about 45 mins. Bake for 35-40 mins until golden. Remove from tin and cool on a wire rack.

Click for the set

The day before yesterday my brother, Lee, turned very old indeed. So, in order that he not forget (in his old age) just how old he was, we went up to Norfolk to visit him and thus I was able to parade my youth and vitality before him like the sprightly and delightful wench that I am.

Lee and his girfriend, Debbie, live in Norfolk, which is the round bit that sticks out to the right above London. We live in Kent, which is the pointy bit that sticks out to the right below London. I missed my calling as a cartographer, I really did. The last time we went up to see Lee and Debbie they were still living in Debbie’s house and were in the middle of decorating their new bungalow. The bungalow is now finished and looks very nice and Debbie’s house has been sold to a man with five German wives and three priests in a cupboard.

We’d been instructed to bring with us any stale bread we might have and took along the end of an old loaf, some old naan bread found at the bottom of the freezer and an unopened packet of Hovis crackers that were two years past their sell-by date. We were not told for whom we were providing these goods, it was evidently to be a surprise.

We had lunch at a little café in Downham Market, where Lee and Debbie were known by the staff and accordingly given a lot of lip and kept in their place while the refined guests from Kent were accorded the respect they deserved.

After we’d eaten, we drove around some more and Lee took us to Denver sluice, where he summoned a fleet of ducks from the opposite bank by quacking loudly until eventually they came over to ask him to stop. The sun was now low and hitting the water at such an angle as to render us all completely blind. Nonetheless, we unpacked our bread and fed the crazy birds, hurling the cracker discs with great panache into the middle of the scrum and leaving lumps of bread on the edge of the wooden platform so that the hissing swan could stretch out his neck and take them.

Then as people were trying to make their way back to the car, I saw some pretty evening light that required photographing with my pretty evening face in it. As Mum reports in her comment on the photo, I danced about trying to get the shot I wanted before finally enlisting her help. You’ll also note from the comments that a certain Elaine is going to hell, perhaps not realising that I do indeed still have my lower arms and that they’d be just the job for pushing her into the river.

Click for the set