Swans, Sherbet and Coathangers

I've been very neglectful of my blog this week. Tut tut!

So, in the misguided hope that the next week might contain some halfway decent weather, I am going to start looking forward to the bbq season! And with that in mind, I'm going to reveal my recipe for beefburgers, which has remained a closely guarded secret until now. Try them once and you'll never go back to frozen packet burgers.

Deluxe BBQ Beefburgers

Ingredients:
1.2kg good quality minced beef
Half a medium red onion, very finely chopped
4 tsps worcestershire sauce
1 egg, beaten
Salt and pepper

Method:
1) Fry the red onion for 2 mins.
2) Add the cooked onion to the minced beef, and pulse in a food processor. Do it in batches if necessary. You want the mince to remain quite coarse.
3) Add the worcestershire sauce, egg and salt and pepper.
4) Mix everything together, and then chill for at least 1 hour.
5) Form the mixture into 6 beefburger patties and BBQ until cooked to your liking!

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BIG announcement next week... I think this blog might become a rather different animal...

That was the weekend that was.

I never expected that I would be covering quite so many miles!

It all began on foot, as I was travelling from door to door collecting Christian Aid envelopes. It's undoubtedly one of my least favourite activities, disturbing people while they're trying to have dinner and asking them to put their hand in their pocket. As expected, my polite enquiries were met with everything from 'bog off' to 'here's my wallet, take what you like'. I managed to disturb one gentleman shaving, one bloke in full scottish regalia about to go to a ball, and countless kids who had obviously been sent to the door as some kind of cunning decoy.

"Is mummy or daddy in?"
"Yes?"
"Can I speak to them?"
"No."

The next morning, Fiona and I dashed off to Dunstable to attend Pippa's leaving party, and later the same evening hot-footed it up to Northampton to see her aunt and uncle. Finally, we paid a visit to Mel and Robin's new(ish) house in Letchworth. Phew!

It's a real shame that Pippa's leaving the country. Over the last few years she's been a relentlessly good friend, and the organiser of countless social events. Here's to you, Pippa.

Disruption and change are never great things. As much as we all like to believe that when change comes our way we can hold our head up high, stick out our chin and cry "Yes! Bring it on!", it rarely turns out to be the case.

Right now, I'm contemplating what to do following the bombshell that our landlady has become preganat and is demanding that we leave our lovely home at the end of July so that she can move back into it. It hopefully won't turn out to be a major issue, and we'll find somewhere as good as where we are now. However, the sudden contrast between feeling 'sorted' and feeling totally adrift is quite hard. I hate not knowing where I'll be living!

Added to this, over the last week or so I've been feeling, erm, discomfort. Downstairs. Yes. YOU know what I'm talking about. No? Well have a quick read of this brochure, then.

Time to take up the Actimel challenge, perhaps.

Would you ever eat horse meat?

I'm not sure if I would or not. That isn't because I have an affinity for horses and therefore couldn't face chewing on one. It's simply the fear of the unknown, I think. As has been widely reported in the papers, the reponse of 'PETA' to Gordon Ramsay's assertion that we should give horse meat a go was to dump a tonne of poo on the doorstep of one his restaurants. I think this is a bit unfair of them! Okay, so they're against eating gallopers. I don't think it's illegal though, and if people want to try it, then fair enough. The general rule, I believe, is to make sure you're sticking to herbivores. As with Mad Cow disease, things can go a little askew in the food chain if you eat animals which eat other animals.

When I was in Switzerland last month, the supermarkets were full of the stuff! It was given equal prominence to, say, pork or chicken. I must admit that if I had been self catering then I would have been sorely tempted.

House problems abound at the moment! Our landlady has announced that she has a bun in the oven, and has asked us to leave at the end of July so she can have a proper family home rather than a small flat. Fair enough, but that does leave a rather significant 'What now??' hanging over our heads!

It's one of the strangest things, going to the funeral of someone you've never met.

Fiona's great aunt passed away a couple of weeks ago, and so it was that I ended up marching into the crematorium in Weston Super Mare yesterday, right to the front row ('reserved for family'). I sat there, feeling totally fraudulent as the life of this remarkable 103-year-old lady was explained to me. There was even a point, just after the prayers, where we were left with "a moment of silence in which to contemplate some of your favourite memories of Ethel". All I could think was that the chief undertaker looked exactly like Adrian Chiles from 'Working Lunch' and 'Match Of The Day 2'.

Still, it was nice to be able to have a rummage around in the farther corners of Fiona's family tree. There was a great spread afterwards which was about 90% cake, and everyone was very nice, even though they must have been thinking "...and you are?"

Yes, it was me. I did it.

I've just returned from a jolly few days in Scarborough where I was filming, but on Wednesday I managed to scrape a car. Two, in fact! I was driving a hire car which had the approximate dimensions of a small tank, and had parked it down a narrow dead-end side street where it was promptly blocked in by some kind considerate soul. I'd been left with a gap that was roughly 3mm wider than the car I was driving to try and squeeze through, and on about the 50th attempt I 'made contact', as it were.

Right on cue, a woman came rushing out of her house yelling "I saw that! I saw that!"
"Oh. I'm terribly sorry, is this your car?"
"No, I just wanted to be nosey and make you feel bad." (This isn't quite what she said, but it may as well have been.)

That's why I had a lengthy accident report to fill out this morning, complete with artistic diagrams, where I tried to paint myself in as good a light as possible. I considered using the phrase 'parking muppet', but decided against it.

In other news, Paris Hilton has been sentenced to 45 days in jail.
HA HA HA ha ha ha ha ha haaaa...

Au revoir!

I'm off to Scarborough for most of the week. Why? I'm not entirely sure. It has something to do with filming, I believe. I'll be back on Friday, and I'm sure there will be plenty to waffle about.

Until then.

*waves cheerfully*

Let's talk Maths for a moment.
No really, let's.

I never got on with it as a child. Or a teenager. Or an adult. In fact, my least favourite task in my current job involves attempting to balance various financial spreadsheets. There's no escape from the dreaded clutches of number-dom, and it hurts the mind, even when you have clever computer formulas to help you.

I chose to take the flippin' subject for A Level! I can't explain this decision, but I can sum it up - Disaster. Somehow though I ended up with a D, despite sitting in all the exams and trying not to cry whenever I heard "you may now turn your papers over and begin".

My spirits were lifted considerably the other day when I read an article about the general 'dumbing down' of maths in all areas of acadmic life, and in particular on some university exam papers. So, here is a question from a recent exam at a high-achieving, well respected university (the article refused to say which). I was happy to see it because the question is an absolute piece of piddle.

You may now turn your papers over, and begin.

It's always nice to read or hear something and be astonished by it. Have you ever heard of Blondin the french tightrope walker? Yes, absolutely. Who hasn't. Anyway, this man had an extrordinary talent for crossing Niagara Falls on a tightrope. He used to do it in a variety of different ways, including blindfolded, on stilts or trundling a wheelbarrow. Now, here's the bit that really astonished me: He once did it carrying a small camping stove. He then sat down halfway along, and proceeded to cook and eat an omelette! Why? I'm very impressed, but... why?!

I have tightropes on the brain today, because yesterday I heard a conversation where they were being discussed as a metaphor for life. I'll have a bash at explaining...

A lot of people feel that their life is like crossing a tightrope. You're entirely focussed on heading in one direction, and you worry that putting a foot wrong will cost you dearly. But, what if life was actually like a field? Yes there are still boundaries, but there's also plenty of room for exploration in all directions.

I definitely don't want to spend my whole life struggling to get from A to B in a straight line. Bring on the field!

"We don't like using the term 'insane' here. We prefer 'mentally hilarious'." (Family Guy)

Our weather seems to be a bit of a stuck record at the moment. Looking at the forecast for the rest of the week, we are promised Sun, Sun, Sun, Sun and, to round things off nicely, some Sun. This will undo all the good work that had been accomplished by the first quarter of the year. Lashings of rain, particularly over here in wales, had resulted in a reprieve for lawns and ponds across the nation as hosepipes could be uncoiled and plumbed in with merry abandon. However, I can almost hear the wails of panic at the water board now, as they slam the lid on their reservoirs and make us all drink foreign bottled water for the next five months.

With the hot weather comes the inevitability of interrupted sleep. I only have one duvet, which has a thickness of about 1 million 'tog'. That's perfect for the winter, but also excellent for poaching humans and small fish during the summer. Layers are coming off. Legs are hanging outside the bed. No tactic ever seems to work!

It won't last of course. This is Britain. Or at least, that used to be the case, but with global warming in full force can we expect 'sweaty bed syndrome' to last all year?